


Daylight Specialist

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anal Sex, Angst, Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Developing Relationship, Drama, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Japan, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Violence, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/M, Vampire Bites, Vampires, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:11:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ninomiya Kazunari takes a new job at the Amagasa Vampire Enclave, he expects it’ll be easy money. After all, the residents are asleep while he’s working. But when two residents in particular catch his eye, he learns that the world he’s entered is more dangerous and alluring than he’d bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegetfxckedcrew (nintendomiya)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nintendomiya/gifts).



> Vampire AU!!! Spoiler alert—Sho is the vampire. Considerable inspiration from Anne Bishop’s _Written in Red_ , and probably True Blood as well.

When Nino was in junior high school, he’d been bullied. There was a group of four boys who came from wealthy families and because of that wealth, they felt they were entitled to treat everyone else in the class like garbage. It had been him and another kid one day, Kohara. He and Kohara had been told to meet the bullies after school at Katsushika’s enclave, a block away from the Tokyo Detention House. 

The bullies had made them a deal—you walk into the enclave’s lobby and whoever stays inside longer will be left alone. At first, he and Kohara had exchanged a rather thoughtful look. If they tied, maybe they’d both be left alone. But at thirteen years old, the thought of stepping foot inside was terrifying. Even a block away from the prison, where inmates on death row who had committed horrible crimes awaited their fate, it was still far more frightening to stand outside the multi-story apartment building, to peer through the glass door and see the lobby beyond.

The Katsushika enclave looked like almost any other apartment building in Tokyo, at least if you just glanced for a moment, the same concrete and glass like Nino’s own home. But there was the bright red sign on the front doors that denoted just what kind of place it was. 

**BUREAU OF UNDEAD MANAGEMENT  
** KATSUSHIKA VAMPIRE ENCLAVE  
AUTHORIZED PERSONS ONLY  
NO SOLICITORS 

Sure, the Bureau of Undead Management had its name on the door, but everybody knew that the property itself belonged to the…people who lived inside. Japanese law didn’t apply once you set foot in an enclave or any business run by a vampire. It was just about the only thing that was entirely theirs, and they managed their own affairs.

Nino remembered staring at that bright red sign for what seemed like an eternity. He’d had two choices: chicken out and continue to get the shit kicked out of him when the bullies were in that sort of mood or go inside where the police couldn’t help him if something went wrong. One of the bullies had finally shoved him.

“Come on, Ninomiya. Go ask for directions. Ask for some extra rice, tell them your mom ran out.”

They’d been pushing Kohara too, but he’d turned and run as soon as they pushed him into the enclave wall, his arm hitting the concrete. Just touching it had sent Kohara, who was tall and sort of strong, running. Then it was just Nino and the four of them, standing outside.

“Come on, Ninomiya. We’ll tell all the girls in class you went inside, even if you piss your pants.”

And so he’d dropped his bookbag on the sidewalk. If he died while he was inside, he thought there ought to be something left of him for the police to find. He buttoned the jacket of his school uniform and ran his hand through his hair. As soon as he pulled on the door, tugging it open, he heard the footsteps—all four of the bullies had turned to flee, just like Kohara. 

None of them had actually thought he’d be so stupid.

The lobby smelled like cleaning products, a harsh and bitter smell, like they’d used a bit too much to clean the lobby’s linoleum floor. It had been completely empty, at first, a long line of mailboxes and an elevator just beyond. It was daylight, after all, it wasn’t like any of them were awake. Somehow he’d been brave enough to walk up to the mailboxes, and he was just brushing his fingers across one of the nameplates on a mailbox when the elevator had chimed.

Nino had never run so fast in his life, nearly losing a shoe as he bolted from the building, barely remembering to grab his bookbag before running all the way home. The four bullies in class mostly left him alone after that, but Nino wasn’t even afraid of them any longer.

For years, he had nightmares. Quick little nightmares that always ended with the chime of the Katsushika enclave’s elevator. 

To this day, he didn’t know who (or what) had been on the other side.

—

But, of course, that was years ago. Almost twenty years ago, in fact, and he wasn’t terribly surprised to discover that the enclave building before him now had a security camera pointed at the entrance. He was able to open the front door with no trouble, but in the entryway before the lobby proper there was another set of double doors, solid steel as far as he could tell, and he had to push the button on the intercom to announce himself.

He had no bookbag to leave outside this time, seeing as how he was turning thirty-two in a few weeks. Instead he was in a suit he hadn’t worn in a while and was grateful that he still remembered how to tie his tie. He hoped that he didn’t look too frightened, looking into the intercom’s video screen, knowing they were watching him. 

Sunset was sometime just after 7:00 PM that evening, and it was 6:42 according to Nino’s watch. There was a buzzing sound as the double doors unlocked, and he let himself inside. There wasn’t the same pungent chemical smell he remembered from the Katsushika enclave. The location itself was far less intimidating, situated as it was in the middle of the mostly residential Ota Ward, in a small commercial district between a dental clinic and a family restaurant.

Amagasa was still a vampire enclave, though. It was seven or eight stories tall, dark brick with the requisite red signs announcing what it was. But inside wasn’t as empty, desolate, or stinky as Katsushika had been. Across the pristine white tile and to the right was an office of some sort, with a large glass window, a door just beyond, a bank of mailboxes, and a metal shutter that was pulled down onto a countertop and locked, but probably served as the reception window for the mail room. Beyond the mail area were two elevators, and Nino just hoped they wouldn’t have the same chime.

To the left of the entryway was a desk with a few bulky monitors. There was a person behind the desk who got to his feet as soon as Nino looked his way. He was a tall, lanky guy, maybe Nino’s age, clad in a navy blue security guard uniform.

“Yo!” the guard said, hurrying around his desk. “Come in, come in, don’t be shy.”

 _This is a vampire enclave, outside Japanese jurisdiction_ , Nino wanted to remind the guy, but he was here to make a good first impression with anyone he happened to meet. “Ninomiya Kazunari, I have an interview with Joshima-san?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course!” The guy approached him, as human as human could be. The security guard had bright, happy eyes and a smile to match. He stuck his hand out, and Nino couldn’t miss the Taser device holstered at his narrow waist. “I’m Aiba Masaki, Daylight Security for Amagasa. Nice to meet you.”

Nino shook his hand. “I’m sorry for coming early…”

Aiba settled his hands on his hips, still smiling. “Don’t worry about it, Joshima-san won’t mind. We’re really excited that you’re here.”

“Is that a fact?” Nino asked, a little uneasy. Were they excited because he’d willingly walked in the door and now they were going to eat him? Well, Aiba-san probably wouldn’t eat him. In fact, Aiba-san, a human security guard, had no visible bite marks on his nicely tanned neck, so perhaps the rumors weren’t all true. Perhaps the vampires really did trust and respect the human help they hired. But would Nino pass the test?

Aiba seemed almost thrilled for the company, and even though they’d been acquainted for less than a minute, he grabbed Nino by the hand and tugged him over to his security station, where he then explained in excruciatingly unnecessary detail where each of his security monitors pointed. There was the one at the front door, the one that had obviously seen Nino coming. There was the monitor for the intercom in the entryway. There was one at the elevator banks beyond the lobby, one under the building in the resident parking garage that steadily panned back and forth, and two more, one inside each elevator.

The more Aiba chatted away, the more Nino found him sort of annoyingly endearing. What kind of human willingly took a job at a vampire enclave, especially a security job that left you sitting in the lobby by yourself all day? Nino had been attracted to the position he was interviewing for because he liked the idea of not talking to anyone for most of the day - with the enclave residents asleep during the day, he’d be alone for hours, enjoying solitude. 

But there’d probably not be a lot of solitude, he realized, if he’d be sharing the Amagasa lobby with Aiba Masaki. 

Nino couldn’t help but wonder what the competition was like. He’d been applying for jobs for the better part of a year now, making it to second and third interviews and still coming up short. Well, having only one job—professional gamer—on your resume kind of made things difficult when you were applying for a regular office job. But after he’d been a little tipsy one night and had applied at Amagasa (mostly as a joke), he’d gotten a reply to set up an interview within an hour.

Since he and Aiba were already on the road to friendship (if Aiba’s cheerful laugh and unsolicited pats on the shoulder were anything to go on), he decided to see what information he could glean from him.

“Aiba-san?” he asked shortly after 7:00 PM. The lobby had small glass block windows, no full view of the outside, but Nino could see the slightest darkening of the light that filtered inside. The sun was on its way down for the night.

“Hmm?”

“I was wondering…and you don’t have to answer this, but I was wondering how many other candidates are up for this position? I don’t want to get my hopes up…”

Aiba had a rather strange laugh, a kind of wheezing chortle that Nino would probably get sick of in a month’s time, give or take. He laughed and laughed before finally wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Ninomiya-san, you’re the only one who’s applied for it!”

In this economy, job security was vital. But it seemed most humans just wouldn’t cross that line. Working for vampires? Willingly? Nino wondered what this made him. A risk taker? Desperate? Stupid?

It was some time later that the elevator chimed, and Nino was really happy to discover that Amagasa’s sounded different.

—

“I’m only one floor up, but I’d rather not take the stairs just after I get up for the day. Aiba-kun says that makes me sound rather old…”

Nino only nodded as the elevator chimed on the next floor and the doors opened. He followed the vampire down the corridor. It seemed there were four apartments to each floor, two to either side of the elevator banks across from each other. Joshima-san, Joshima Shigeru he’d introduced himself, led Nino to the first one to the left, turning the doorknob. He hadn’t felt the need to lock it before heading down to the lobby, which said a lot about his trust in Aiba as a security guard—and which said a lot about the other residents.

“Please, go right ahead.”

Joshima appeared to be a man in his forties, with a gentle, kind face (though Aiba had implied that he’d been a vampire for a very long time). He reminded Nino of the kind of salarymen who went to stand-up bars, staring at the rim of their beer glasses in peaceful solitude while the noisy world rambled on around them. For Nino’s benefit, Joshima had said that he would breathe. Apparently most humans who encountered vampires found their lack of respiration to be scarier than the threat of the bite. Joshima explained that most vampires by now had adapted to it, to breathing again, in their own way. Nino didn’t know why he’d expected the man to dress a certain way. He wasn’t in a Dracula cape or anything, but a t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops, and the apartment he brought Nino inside was rather spartan, but not abnormal.

Downstairs, Aiba had mentioned to him in the midst of his lengthy security camera story that Amagasa Vampire Enclave had been a normal apartment building until the mid-70’s when Joshima had purchased it. For centuries, most Japanese enclaves had been on the outskirts of towns or in undesirable neighborhoods, near industrial complexes or noisy airports. Joshima had long been an advocate for peaceful relations between his kind and humans, and though there’d been a lot of fuss at first, Amagasa was now part of the community. Would they ever be fully accepted? No, but Amagasa gave the neighborhood little trouble and thus they were mostly left alone.

Though Nino had noticed more of the glass block windows on the building’s exterior before entering, he saw that they were boarded up on the inside of Joshima’s apartment, covered with heavy curtains. “Let me give you a tour, just to let you know a little about how we live.”

Nino felt way overdressed in his suit and tie as Joshima eased out of his flip flops and led Nino around his apartment. The kitchen had appliances and fixtures like any apartment, but the counters were bare. Joshima merely tapped on his refrigerator door. “Don’t worry, Ninomiya-san, I’ve already had my breakfast.”

A chill raced down Nino’s spine, even though Joshima hadn’t come within five feet of him save for their brief elevator ride together. Much as the vampire was trying to put him at ease, there was no denying what he was. Someone who had blood in his refrigerator. Nino smiled politely, trying not to let his unease show as Joshima continued the little tour. There was a low table and cushions, a small TV set and a bookshelf in the living area, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Although there was no bed or futon to speak of, not in the normal sense.

Nino had done some research about enclaves on the Internet, and there was a surprising amount of information out there about “vampire coffins.” Not that vampires slept in actual coffins, that was just the old stereotype. In olden times, they’d merely burrowed themselves in the dirt to wait out the day, but Japan’s love of technology knew no bounds. Joshima’s bedroom housed a dark, crate-like “modern vamp sleep unit,” which had a long, thick cord that was plugged into the wall and had a computer panel on the side.

Joshima tapped in a combination and the thing opened quietly, almost like a bathtub lid if it was remote controlled. Joshima encouraged Nino to peer inside. He found a few pillows and blankets. “Temperature-controlled, sound-proof, completely dark, works on a timer. It’s a dream,” Joshima explained, cheerily patting the sleep unit with his hand. “You know, there are humans that have these now, can you believe it? There’s a market for it, some of the capsule hotels are thinking of investing. Aiba-kun almost bought one, but his girlfriend wasn’t too fond of the idea…”

Nino waited until Joshima turned back to the sleep unit’s control panel to hide a smile in the crook of his arm. Working for vampires was definitely rubbing off on the security guard downstairs.

“What happens if the power goes out? You don’t get locked inside, do you?”

Joshima chuckled warmly. “The lock disengages if power to the unit is disconnected. Then it just becomes a bed with a lid on it, you could say. We’re not a claustrophobic sort. You really can’t be, you know?”

Nino laughed in return. He’d stayed in a capsule hotel once or twice, slept more than his fair share of nights in a tiny cubicle at a manga cafe, but something about the sleep unit still weirded him out.

Joshima led him back into his small living room, and Nino joined him on the floor, sitting on one of the cushions. Yeah, he definitely had overdressed for this interview. Joshima produced a thick manila file folder from his bookshelf, sliding it across the table for Nino to peruse.

“I know the ad was a little vague about all the duties of the position. We don’t really like to give out too much information about what goes on in our enclaves,” Joshima said, sitting cross-legged, tapping his fingers on his knees.

Nino opened the folder, finding addresses and contact information for several package delivery services in the area, contact details for the Tokyo branch of the Bureau of Undead Management, lists of dentists and doctors, delivery places of all sorts—from food to furniture to consumer electronics.

“That’s a current directory of everyone who has done business with Amagasa in the last few years. They know us, and we know them,” Joshima explained. “As our Daylight Specialist, you’d be doing a lot of the work we can’t get done because of the strange hours we keep.”

Mail distribution, signing for packages and other deliveries, running errands. Joshima went on and on, making Nino’s head spin. He thought he’d just be sitting quietly in that office most of the day, earning an easy paycheck. But no, the “Daylight Specialist” position, a bizarre job title if Nino ever heard one, required him to go out too. To go to the bank and make withdrawals or deposits during business hours on residents’ behalf. To fetch groceries. To drive the Amagasa enclave’s car if needed to drive BCs to and from appointments…

“Wait,” Nino interrupted, closing the folder. “BCs? You have BCs here?”

Joshima smiled. “I know it seems a little old fashioned, but yes, some of our residents do maintain live-in BCs on premises. You’d be responsible for escorting them if they have to leave the building during daylight hours. Doctor’s appointment, a pre-arranged visit with their families or friends. They’re usually smart about it, they’ll give you notice.”

BC, taken from the English phrase “blood contract.” Nino didn’t even know it was still legal, but then again, most people didn’t take a very close look at vampires too often. It was easier to just leave them alone. Blood contracts these days were a popular plot for a fantasy drama series, for a trashy novel. But apparently it still happened, even in the 21st century. Humans who willingly agreed to serve as a source of blood for a vampire, staying with them for an agreed upon period of time. Completely under their sway. Centuries earlier, there’d been no contracts—vampires had abducted humans, kept them as blood slaves. 

When Japan opened to the west, the oh-so-civilized “blood contract” came with them. Instead of kidnapping and forced imprisonment, a BC moved into the vampire’s enclave, lived with him, came under his protection. In exchange for the BC’s blood, to be taken at any time, the vampire provided them with food, shelter, and monetary compensation. In theory, it was supposed to make the vampires less scary, if they went “monogamous” with a human instead of prowling the streets when the hunger struck. Most didn’t see it that way though. “Blood whore” was the phrase that got bandied about back in Nino’s school days, if it was discovered your older sister, a cousin, an uncle, your mother, was a cabaret club girl or a host. It was just the first step on a journey to being a BC, people said. First they pay for your time. Then your body. Then if you’re really desperate for money, you let them pay for your blood.

Joshima was looking at him, raising an eyebrow. “Does that make you uncomfortable, Ninomiya-san? I can assure you that all of the BCs at Amagasa are decent people. They simply made a choice that most of your kind don’t agree with.”

“No,” he said, swallowing his curiosity. “No, I’m fine with it.” Hell, he was all set to take a job for the vampires. He would take their money, do his job, and just have to hope that they wouldn’t ask for much more.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Joshima admitted. “There’s enough judgment in our own community about the practice. Amagasa is one of the more tolerant enclaves in the country, I’ll say that much. Most other enclaves just tell their residents to go to the bank these days. Keeping human BCs on property is riskier.”

There were “blood banks” popping up all over the country lately, the vampire world equivalent of love hotels. Blindfolded and closely monitored vampires paid thousands of yen to drink from a willing human. They were all about anonymity, open only at night on vampire time. You’d go, make your money, take a few days off work until your neck healed (or just ask them to bite you where nobody would see). Nobody would know. Nino hadn’t done it, but he’d dated someone who had. “Quickest money I ever made.” And apparently it felt amazing, having the blood sucked from your body, though Nino had mostly written it off as a quirky kink for masochists.

If you had a thing for vampires, or just got sucked once in a while for the thrill, you could keep it quiet. It was all very Japanese, very discreet and hush hush. But if you were a BC, everyone knew—you had to quit your job, leave everything behind, and move in to the vampire’s enclave. And some of those people lived here, at Amagasa, and it would be Nino’s job to help them.

Joshima let Nino hold on to the folder, and together they headed back down to the lobby. The vampire produced a set of keys and unlocked the door to the mail room. He turned on the light, and Nino frowned at the state of the place. “Your predecessor, if you will, passed away a few months back. And before you ask, it was natural causes. Misako-san was in her mid-seventies and she’d been helping out here for years.” Nino sidestepped a few garbage bags, overflowing with piles of junk mail. “Aiba-kun usually works in here for a little while each day, just to make sure we’ve got important things like bills and such, but as you can see, there’s boxes that haven’t gotten to their owners yet, some magazine subscriptions, things like that.”

From the piles and piles of things littering the mail room’s countertops and the table in the center of the room, Aiba hadn’t exactly put much effort into keeping things organized. 

“Aiba-kun knows the delivery people, and the people from the post office, so he’ll let them in, but it would be your job from there to get things where they have to go. And then the rest of the time you’d be helping out with our daytime business.” Joshima leaned back against the counter, offering a wary smile. “You’re very brave for applying, even more for coming inside to talk with me. Could you be honest and tell me why you want to work for us?”

Nino decided a brutally honest answer was the best answer. It had obviously kept him from making it very far on other interviews, but lying to a vampire’s face was not something he wanted to do. “I’ve been told that enclaves pay very well for human staff. Also, the building I’m living in right now is about to convert from rentals into condominiums for purchase, and much as it would be a good thing to invest in property, my savings should be savings for the future, not the present. I have no income right now, and your job posting noted that company housing was included in the compensation package. You’d be saving me a lot of trouble.”

Joshima didn’t react negatively to this, at least as far as Nino could tell. He just nodded, mumbling “hmm, is that so?”

“That’s not to say I wouldn’t take the job seriously,” Nino said, holding up his hands. “I’m a quick study, and if you read my resume, I think I’d be good at…mail sorting. Nimble fingers, you know. From being a gamer.”

“Professional video game player,” Joshima said. “Why are you no longer in that profession?”

Nino swallowed. He didn’t exactly want to admit that the younger, up and coming players had all but forced him out. Nimbler fingers. “Looking for new opportunities.”

Joshima grabbed one of the junk mail envelopes from the table, taking a pen from a cup near the metal shutter at the reception window. He turned his back, writing something down. When he turned, his face was more serious than it had been until now.

“Company housing is just another name for the apartments upstairs from the restaurant next door. There are two of them. Aiba-kun lives in one, you’d be in the other. Since you aren’t BCs, you’re under no obligation to live in the enclave. We do have an empty one on the fifth floor right now, but the agent from the Bureau of Undead Management would probably not allow it unless you made a good case for it. Utilities, Internet, TV hook-up, water, that’s all included.”

Nino nodded. Being next door would give Nino a longer “commute” than he was used to, since he usually just went online from his console to participate in tournaments, but this wasn’t half bad. “Those terms seem acceptable.”

“There’s a stigma attached to working for us. Getting a job elsewhere with an enclave on your resume will be almost impossible. Please keep that in mind. In addition,” Joshima explained, “your shift is sunrise to sunset, if that wasn’t obvious. You’ll work longer hours in the summer, shorter in winter. You don’t get sick days. If you’re unwell, simply stay home and Aiba-kun will cover the desk for you. Please do not abuse this privilege. Vacation time needs to be worked out as far in advance as you can manage. If Aiba-kun is on vacation or ill, we have someone come from one of the other enclaves to cover for him. You will not be expected to perform his duties beyond due diligence in protecting the privacy of our residents.”

Before Nino could blink, Joshima was across the room, beside him, with a hand around his throat. Nino gasped for air, thoroughly stunned. Vampires were quick, quicker than he’d even imagined. Had this all been one elaborate prank? Had this cheerful uncle just been messing with him and now he was going to be a snack? He whimpered pathetically.

But Joshima’s grip relaxed slightly, even as his eyes refused to leave Nino’s. “We’ll pay you well, human, and so long as you’re inside this building, you are under my protection. We really aren’t asking that much from you besides your discretion. Your friends don’t come here. You don’t tell anyone who lives here. You are our daytime liaison with the government, and we’ll expect you to have our interests in mind.” Joshima leaned even closer, and Nino could smell the coppery tang of blood on his breath. He suspected that was intentional. “Inside these walls, you are under my protection, but if you betray us in any way, just remember that we are the law inside here as well. Is that clear?”

Nino was barely able to nod, on the verge of wetting himself. Was Aiba out in the hall watching through the glass? It was after dark now, were the other vampires listening in?

“I have worked too long and too hard to be nice to your kind and to create a safe haven for my people at the same time. I have defied my very nature to abide by human laws. Do know that there are humans out there who hate us, curse us, and want us dead. They’d use someone like you to get at us. Amagasa is not a place for you to brag about or check off a bucket list,” Joshima told him. “So help me, if you violate the trust we place in you, you will regret it.”

The vampire let him go, and Nino exhaled, shaking in terror as he leaned back against the countertop, wanting to flee. And yet…and yet…when Joshima said that Nino would be under his protection, he’d meant it. Nino felt it all the way to his bones. Talk about job security.

Joshima set down the piece of mail he’d written on, tapping the counter with his knuckles. “Your salary, if you choose to accept the position. I’ll be out in the lobby, so please consider your answer carefully.” The slightly sheepish look he’d worn upon greeting him was back. “This is my home, Ninomiya-san. You have to understand how serious this is. I get that you’re in it for the money, there’s no shame in it. But we will expect you to earn it.”

The vampire left him alone, and without even having to check, Nino knew that his neck would soon purple and bruise, the outline of fingers marked on his skin for days whether he said yes or no to Joshima. 

He remembered being a dumb kid, pulling open the door to an enclave lobby, walking inside without so much as a ‘pardon my intrusion.’ Entering a home that wasn’t his because he selfishly believed it would prove something to those bullies. Vampires didn’t barge into human homes. Vampires were second-class citizens in Japan. They willingly lived in their enclaves, let the government count them. They wore red badges or armbands whenever they left their enclaves at night. As Joshima said, they stifled their natures to live as peacefully among humans as they could. They even breathed to put humans at ease. Joshima only wanted to protect his people, and yet Nino had applied for the job as a joke.

Well, it seemed that this job wasn’t a joking matter after all.

He took a deep breath before picking up the envelope Joshima had written on, turning it over. His eyes bulged at the number of zeroes.

“Holy shit.”

—

They were giving him time to move in and get settled before expecting him to get to work. He broke out of his lease agreement for his apartment in Kawasaki. With the money Amagasa would be paying him, apparently a salary that Joshima and all the residents of Amagasa contributed to, breaking his lease early wouldn’t really cost him that much in the end. Joshima even paid his moving costs, so long as he worked with a moving company that was trusted in the vampire community. Aiba helped too, so eager was he to finally have a next door neighbor above the restaurant. He had a replacement covering Amagasa security for him that day, which Nino thought was awfully kind of him.

Nino’s new apartment wasn’t much bigger than the one he was leaving, but there was enough room for all his TVs and gaming systems, which was the main point. As the movers brought in his boxes and furniture, he made sure to talk to the head of the crew. Yamaguchi-san from TOKIO Movers had been friends with Joshima for years, and he coordinated almost every move at Amagasa, whether it was a BC coming or going or a resident moving in from another enclave. It was important for Nino to know him, for them to trust one another.

“You’re a lot younger than the last Daylight Specialist,” Yamaguchi teased, chatting with Nino in his new kitchen as two of his crew worked to get Nino’s loveseat up the stairs. “Misako-san was a very kind woman.”

“Do you know why she worked for vampires, an old lady like that?”

Yamaguchi had a round face and an easy smile, but his expression grew solemn. “Her son was turned. It was rough on her. I think working at Amagasa gave her some deal of comfort.”

New vampires were usually cut off immediately by their families. It was the law that vampires had to live in enclaves, for the safety of the human majority, so whether the family kicked you out first or not, it didn’t much matter. You had to leave. And with humans all but banned from enclaves except in special circumstances like Nino’s job, it was unlikely a mother would have seen her vampire son too often, even if she’d still wanted to. 

“Well, I hope I can do a decent job in her place.”

“They all liked her. She was very no-nonsense. Vampires prefer the straightforward sort, so I’m sure you are too. Otherwise Leader wouldn’t have hired you.”

“Leader?”

Yamaguchi chuckled. “They all call Joshima that, the Amagasa vampires. He’s their leader, really. If Joshima likes you, Ninomiya-san, then I don’t think you have much to worry about. They follow his lead when it comes to humans.”

Aiba came huffing and puffing into the apartment, carrying bags of groceries. “Oi, Ninomiya-kun! I’m going to stock your fridge!”

“But I don’t cook,” he mumbled, even as Aiba elbowed him aside rudely and pulled his refrigerator open and started unloading his bags. Fruits, veggies, salads…nothing Nino really made much effort to eat when there were things like milk bread and hamburgers in the world.

Yamaguchi patted Aiba on the head, ruffling his messy brown hair. “Those vampires just love this one. Probably because he’s no threat.”

“I’m a security guard,” Aiba protested, straightening up and trying to puff out his chest. Aiba wasn’t exactly a bulky sort, not that Nino was either. “Of course I’m threatening!”

Yamaguchi only laughed harder. “Alright, I’m going back to the truck, see what’s left.”

Aiba was still putting stuff in the fridge, grumbling under his breath. “I’m tough, you know.”

“I’m sure you are, Aiba-san,” Nino said, hoping he sounded serious. If he was going to have to be Aiba’s neighbor and also sit in the lobby of Amagasa with him all day, they had to get along. He supposed there were worse people in the world to work with.

The movers got everything inside, and that left the rest of the afternoon for Nino to unpack, settle in. When Aiba got bored watching Nino get his games unpacked and hooked up in lieu of even unboxing his clothes, he headed for all the groceries he’d put in the fridge and volunteered to cook them something. Nino could definitely get used to this. The Amagasa salary, a neighbor who’d cook for him. Not bad at all.

When the sun set and the dirty dishes lingered in the sink hours later, Aiba went over to Nino’s window, which faced out onto the street below. Aiba’s fingers jammed in the blinds, tugging them open a bit. “Here, look. Look, some of them are heading out.”

It was a Friday night, and it had been a hot summer day, but things were finally starting to cool down. It shouldn’t have surprised him that the Amagasa vampires were no different from most people in Tokyo, going out to celebrate the weekend. He got to his feet, padding over to the window. But where he expected a steady stream of people in casual clothes, he saw a few men and women in business attire pass under the window, heading in the direction of the train station. Ah, no wonder, Nino realized. Any vampires who ran businesses or worked for other vampire establishments started their jobs after the sun went down.

Aiba helpfully supplied some names, giving Nino an early start on some of the residents he’d be helping in his new job. Amagasa mainly housed male vampires. There were many larger enclaves in the Tokyo metropolitan area that were more suitable for women, for those in relationships. Amagasa’s apartments weren’t very large, so most people lived alone or with one other person, a BC or vampire roommate.

“That’s Hina,” Aiba explained, pointing and smearing Nino’s window glass. Nino bit his tongue to keep from scolding him. Aiba pointed to a vampire who’d just pulled out from Amagasa’s underground garage in a garish purple Mercedes. “Murakami, he actually runs a blood bank in Kabukicho. You ever heard of the Kyu Jo Show Club?”

He shook his head. 

“Well, I guess it’s a fancy blood bank. He’s filthy rich,” Aiba whined. “But he’s so cheap, you know! I ordered this soccer DVD for him that he wanted, since it was an overseas seller that wouldn’t sell to vampires, so I went to all this trouble. And then he wouldn’t even give me the money for the shipping, just face value for the DVD. ‘That’s human nonsense, the shipping cost, Aiba-chan,’ he tells me. What a jerk!”

Nino rolled his eyes. Yamaguchi had definitely been right—Aiba certainly wasn’t a threat, if the vampires were walking all over him. Nino couldn’t let them do the same to him. If he was ordering DVDs, he wasn’t paying for anything with his own money.

While Aiba continued to babble on about this Murakami and his thriftiness, a quality Nino tended to admire in people, two people stopped right under his window, the street light streaming down on them, bathing them in its warm glow. With the air conditioning on in the apartment, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. It was two men in business attire, and though this wasn’t so uncommon a sight in Tokyo, Nino felt a rather strange tug at the sight of them.

The first one was in a gray suit, holding a briefcase. He had a round, almost boyishly cute face with dark hair. Handsome, but with something more that Nino couldn’t quite pinpoint just by looking at him. He was pointing to his watch, looking a little impatient as he talked to the man with him. Now this man, Nino realized, his breath catching, was distractingly attractive. Absurdly perfect bone structure, tousled black hair, broad shouldered, with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and holding his suit jacket over his arm. He was clearly arguing, pointing back at Amagasa emphatically.

“Who…” Nino was embarrassed at how his voice cracked, but Aiba didn’t seem to notice. “Who are they?”

The guy with the watch seemed to finally relent, throwing his hands up as his companion went racing back into the enclave. 

“Aiba-kun,” Nino repeated, trying to catch Aiba by his shirt sleeve. “Who are they?”

He couldn’t stop staring, watching the man in the suit reach his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. Before Nino could let go of the blinds, back away, the man looked up and their eyes met, locked.

“Oh god,” Nino mumbled, feeling weak in the knees.

Even though it was obvious that his friend was the one who could pass for a movie star, it was the gaze of this other man upon him that changed everything. Nino felt something awaken inside him that he hadn’t known was there. And he wasn’t the sort of person who was prone to having things suddenly “awaken inside him” either. He was too pragmatic for concepts like love at first sight, or, in this case, irresponsible lustful feelings at first sight. And yet, here it was, this urgent need, keeping him locked in place, unable to even blink as the man stared up at him.

The man didn’t look away, and Nino wondered if even through the glass and one story down this man had cast a spell on him. Now that he was looking closer, caught in his awkward stare, he realized that the man’s eyes were gorgeous, calculating, seeming to assess Nino’s worth in an instant. His tongue poked out of his mouth for just an instant, brushing along his plump bottom lip. The man then brought up his hand, waving, and Aiba waving back at him finally broke the strange tension.

“Hey! Hey Sho-chan!” Aiba called, oblivious.

Nino stepped back from the window, nearly tripping over a box. It was like a tether had snapped, some invisible cord that had wrapped around his heart, squeezing hard. Aiba turned, releasing the blinds.

“Ninomiya-kun, what’s wrong?”

He sat down awkwardly on his loveseat. “There were two of them, that guy you just waved to and the other one. Are they both…are they both…?”

Until that moment, Nino had still only met one vampire in his life, and that was Joshima-san. Nino had been petrified of him briefly, down in the mail room the day he’d been hired, but the rest of the time he’d been like any other person. But from the instant he’d seen the two men downstairs, the hair on his arms had stood up, his throat had gone dry.

“Are they both what?” Aiba asked before laughing. “Oh, you mean are they both vampires? Sho-chan is.”

“Sho- _chan_?”

“Ah, he’d probably be mad if he heard me tell someone that’s his name. He’s a proper businessman, as I’m sure he’d tell you. Sakurai Sho-san, he was the person I waved to. He’s a vampire.”

“He was looking at me.”

Aiba cocked his head. “Probably because you were staring at him through your blinds like a pervert.”

Nino bit the inside of his cheek to keep from reminding Aiba that he’d been the one to go creeping on people through the blinds in the first place. Sakurai Sho, in his crisp suit, with his fancy briefcase. He was a vampire. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Because if Nino had been staring, Sakurai Sho had been staring right back. Why?

“And his…the other guy?”

“Other guy? Oh, you mean Jun-kun.”

That Aiba was on a first name or nickname basis with vampires said a lot about who he was. “Yeah, the other man. He went back inside.”

Aiba went back to peeking outside. “Oh, they’re gone already. Well, if he went inside, he already found what he wanted. Maybe he forgot his dinner. Jun-kun’s always taking food with him to work.”

“Food?” Nino asked curiously. “What kind of vampire eats food?”

Aiba shook his head. “No, no. I said Sho-chan’s the vampire. Jun-kun is his BC. Matsumoto Jun-kun, he’s as human as you and me.”

Nino felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. Sakurai had probably just been looking at Nino like a forbidden meal, if he had his own blood contract. He sat back further against the loveseat cushions, confused and intrigued and sick to his stomach all at once, which was rather impressive, he had to admit. The man in the suit was a vampire, and the man he was with, this Matsumoto Jun, lived with him. Let him drink his blood, whenever he had a craving for it. And how often was that?

He gazed blankly at the wall while Aiba puttered around the kitchen, washing the dishes and humming off-key to himself. It had been less than a minute, mere seconds staring out the window and watching the two of them. A vampire and his blood contract. But they’d seemed so normal, if a bit perfect. Like drama lead or idol perfect. They’d been standing there having a quick little argument like anyone, and yet Matsumoto had given up whatever life he’d had to live with Sakurai.

What could compel someone to do something like that, to throw everything away to live in an enclave, surrounded by creatures whose survival depended on blood? But then Nino thought of the way Sakurai had looked at him, like he was burrowing inside and taking up residence, seeing through Nino despite the distance between them. Was it a trick? Was it coercion? Was Matsumoto Jun under Sakurai’s…glamor or something too?

Much as he was curious about Sakurai, Matsumoto, and all the other residents he’d be working with, he decided not to bother Aiba any longer. Nino had a new sleep schedule to adjust to and he was not looking forward to it. In two days he’d be starting his new position as Amagasa’s Daylight Specialist. The newness of vampires, of being in a building where they slept all day, these deadly creatures, that was what had him weirded out. Soon enough, he’d be as comfortable with them as Aiba was. 

Right?

He said farewell to his new friend for the night, finding himself turning both of his door locks and putting the chain on. He’d lived in a world that vampires walked since he was born, but now that he lived next door, he couldn’t help but want to be safe. He’d work for the vampires, sure. He’d do a good job. But he couldn’t allow himself to forget who they were, and what they could do to him if he didn’t tread carefully.

Even if they had gorgeous brown eyes and kissable lips, a vampire was a vampire.


	2. Chapter 2

Today was the big day, his first day on the job. Joshima-san had stopped by Nino’s apartment just after sunset the previous night, officially handing over the keys to the mail room. Aiba had a copy and Joshima himself had a copy, but otherwise, the room was now Nino’s sole responsibility. There was also a toilet and sink in a small employee bathroom just behind the mail room near the elevators, and Nino and Aiba would share the key for it as well as the responsibility for keeping it clean.

His new sleep routine was a real pain in the ass. Though he hadn’t truly realized it until now, Nino had been keeping vampire hours for most of his twenties, staying up late playing in tournaments against people from around the world. But he was in his thirties now, and his body was quick to inform him that he was treating it poorly. And now he’d be waking before dawn every day, at the height of summer when the days were longest. Though he supposed if he fell asleep in the mail room, only Aiba would know.

It was just after 7:00 AM now and he’d managed to swallow down a rice ball Aiba had made him (“a celebratory onigiri for my new colleague!” he’d said with a straight face), letting coffee do the rest. He’d picked up a small coffee maker for the mail room the day before, and he was already pleased with his investment. 

While most jobs gave you some sort of orientation period, he didn’t exactly have a supervisor now. Instead Nino had started his day brewing his coffee, trying to assess which part of the mail room he ought to tackle first. Aiba had helped him to unlock the metal shutter, which brought sunlight streaming into the mail room, but thankfully not too much because of the glass block windows. With the shutter up, he was officially open for business, although the mail room appeared to state otherwise.

Half the room was taken up with boxes, stacked almost to the ceiling. And where there weren’t boxes there were piles and piles of mail, magazines, flyers for restaurants. There was mail on the countertops, mail on the floor that he kept stepping on, and it took Nino at least ten minutes to clear enough paper away to discover that there was actually a computer in the mail room that was his to use. Thank god, he thought. Now he could go online most of the day.

It wasn’t completely quiet, of course, because Aiba wasn’t too far away. He seemed to be respecting Nino’s need to get settled so far, sitting at his desk and doing whatever it was he did. Every fifteen minutes or so he got up, walking the lobby, passing the glass window in the hall outside the mail room, heading to the elevator banks. And then he’d go back to his desk. Patrolling, at least that’s what Nino figured so far. 

Nino booted up the computer and was thankful it didn’t have a password. He chalked that up to the fact that the previous person who held his position was elderly. But she wasn’t completely computer illiterate. There were several folders on the computer’s desktop, clearly labeled. Residents. Directory. Forms. He found spreadsheets with a listing of each apartment in the building and the people who lived there. He skimmed it quickly, making a note in the back of his head that unit 6B was home to Sakurai Sho and Matsumoto Jun. He closed the file, shaking his head.

The directory contained a very organized list of phone numbers and addresses, similar to the hard copy Joshima had presented him at the interview. And then in the forms folder, there were government documents, backups of documentation from the ward office, form letters. Half of them had “proxy” in the file name. He opened one, glancing briefly:

 

**VAMPIRE PROXY AUTHORIZATION FORM - SUMITOMO MITSUI BANKING CORPORATION (WITHDRAWAL/DEPOSIT)**

I have been authorized by the Vampire ______________, Account Holder ____________, to withdraw ____________ from his/her account.

I have been authorized by the Vampire ______________, Account Holder ____________, to deposit ___________ to his/her account.

 

He couldn’t help but smile. “Misako-san, you’re amazing.” 

Nino really didn’t need that much training, after all. His predecessor was organized and kept good records of everything she’d done. There were proxy forms for at least ten different banks, half a dozen credit card companies, several stockbrokers. Templates she’d made if he needed to create a new form. If one of the residents needed him, he just had to print the right form and he was halfway done already. He turned in the slightly squeaky office chair, looking at the piles of junk. Poor Misako-san, if she could see how the place had changed without her.

Come lunchtime, Aiba came over to the reception window, and unfortunately he’d found the small little service bell, dinging it to get Nino’s attention. “Service! Can I get some service here?”

He got to his feet, having made little headway into a stack of magazines. It was remarkable what vampires subscribed to - hiking enthusiast magazines, men’s fashion magazines, CD of the month clubs. If any of the residents got porn delivered, it seemed that they’d already come and claimed it, because Nino hadn’t found any yet.

“What’s up?” he asked, leaning on the counter, looking up into Aiba’s smiling face.

“Let’s order lunch, my treat.”

Nino liked the sound of that. “People deliver food here? When it’s not for a resident?”

Aiba nodded. “Of course, I think they prefer it, you know? I mean, you’ll get a BC ordering a pizza or ramen once in a while, but delivery places usually don’t want to come by if it’s after the sun goes down. Humans are cowardly.”

“Aiba-san…” He looked up, seeing that Aiba was thoroughly convinced the vampires of Amagasa were no threat. “Never mind. Let’s get some ramen then, if you’re treating.”

Within half an hour a local place had delivered, and the middle aged delivery man had been shaking in his shoes when Aiba buzzed him into the lobby, though he visibly relaxed when he saw that it was just Aiba and Nino there to greet him. Aiba had joined him in the mail room at the part of the table Nino had managed to clear off that morning. He got up to check his monitors every few minutes, but otherwise it was a good meal they shared, and Aiba was actually impressed with how much information about the job he’d been able to glean just from booting up the computer.

“Why haven’t we gotten any mail yet today?” Nino asked between slurps of the tasty ramen broth. “Or deliveries?”

Aiba smiled. “That’s my fault, actually. The mail usually comes around 2 PM, that’s standard, but I called the delivery places, the usual ones that come by, asked them to hold off until the afternoon. Since we’ve got a new Daylight Specialist and I wanted you to be ready. And so they can all meet you.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “They’re all going to show up at the same time, and I’ll have to sign for a dozen packages at once.”

“Well, probably,” Aiba said with a laugh, “but they’re all good guys. We’re not the only enclave they visit either, so they get it.”

They finished their lunch, and Nino got back to work. He spent the first half of the afternoon starting to organize some of the mail piles by floor. It helped him start to learn names, too, which could only help him in the long run. Instead of upending the bags of mail and getting all of it organized first, he was just going to start dumping it in their mailboxes bit by bit. If it was old or irrelevant, the vampires could recycle it themselves. Eventually the piles would thin out, and he could take more time on sorting new mail, coming up with a better system.

He was interrupted by a quick succession of delivery men. Aiba was responsible for buzzing them in, but it was important for Nino to recognize and acknowledge them too. In case Aiba was out sick, it would be Nino’s job to help Aiba’s replacement to confirm that anyone wanting to be buzzed in was legitimate. He signed for four packages from a chatty delivery man with colorful glasses from Black Cat, Yashima-san. Another two from a quiet, kind of grumpy guy from Japan Express with a buzzcut named Shibutani. Tall and friendly Nakajima from Super Delicate Deliveries. Tall and sleepy Ohkura from Infinity Overnight. And then the neighborhood mail carrier Kazama, who was apparently good friends with Aiba. He’d given Nino a quick handshake in greeting, dumped a heavy stack of mail on the counter, and then he and Aiba started chatting like two housewives who’d gone a whole week without gossiping.

Nino just rolled his eyes, taking the mail to the table. Bills, flyers, and even more magazines. He’d watched the past few nights as some of the vampires left the enclave. He wondered how many of them didn’t, which probably explained why there were so many magazines and packages from booksellers that got delivered. There were homebody vampires just like there were homebody humans. Nino was kind of amused to discover that there were vampires who probably shared personality traits with him. All Nino was missing was a craving for blood.

With all the mail to sort and computer forms to familiarize himself with, Nino was pleased with how quickly the day had passed. He was also pleased with how much progress he’d made. Once the day’s packages had been delivered to the building, Aiba had helped him unearth a mail cart from behind a stack of boxes that Misako-san had used. He’d piled it high with some of the packages he’d already gone through, had taken the elevator up and dropped them off in front of the apartment doors. It had been a little eerie going up to the quiet floors, wondering if the wheels of the cart were waking any of the residents up. But things had gone without a hitch, and it had helped clear quite a bit of space already.

By sunset, he was tired, but a good kind of tired. An accomplished kind of tired. Aside from Aiba’s long chat with Kazama-san and his occasional visits to ding the service bell, Nino had been able to work quietly the entire day. He supposed things would get tougher if he had to actually go out and run errands for the residents, but the concept of a day’s work in an enclave hadn’t really been that terrifying. He actually felt an odd sort of pride, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He was just about to lock up for the night when the bell at the already locked reception window dinged. He pulled his keys from his pocket, wondering why Aiba didn’t just go to the door or knock on the window glass. He unlocked the shutter and pushed it up only to find someone he didn’t recognize.

There was a pale, angry face staring at him, a man holding a package. Nino’s eyes quickly darted over the vampire’s shoulder, seeing that Aiba had already gone home. The enclave didn’t have any security at night—nobody would dare to break in when the vampires were actually awake. So Nino was alone to introduce himself.

“Hello, I’m Ninomiya. Your new Daylight Specialist.”

The vampire scowled at him. “What’s with this?” the vampire complained, shoving the box across the counter so hard it thumped Nino in the chest. He tried not to react, reminding himself that it was his first day, and he couldn’t screw this up.

He looked down at the package, saw that it was addressed to a ‘Yokoyama Yu-sama’ in unit 3A. “Are you Yokoyama-san? Did I make an error?”

“I’m Yokoyama,” the guy complained, crossing his arms. “Open it and guess why I’m here.”

Nino swallowed, nodding with a nervous smile as he opened the box. He remembered dropping it off earlier in the day. He looked inside and realized his mistake. The box was full of vampire “treats,” blood-flavored chips and cookies that had enough blood content to work through a vampire’s system and not make him ill. The first packet he took out of the box was long past its expiration date. He expected the others were too.

“What’s the point, man?” Yokoyama complained, his fist pounding on the counter. “I gave these up for lost after Misako-san died and I’d gotten over it. And then you just drop these at my door, what’s wrong with you?”

Nino tried not to laugh. Laughing at a vampire was a bad choice, he knew that much. But was he really that angry about some expired snacks? Couldn’t he just buy some at stores that specialized in vampire treats? “I’m sorry, Yokoyama-san, but to be fair, the box itself didn’t have an expiration date.”

Yokoyama leaned over the counter, and Nino reflexively jumped back. The vampire sighed, taking the box in his hands, chuckling at Nino’s fright. “It says ‘perishable’ on it, you dumbass. And the box was mailed out two months ago, look at the damn stamp. You know what ‘perishable’ means?”

“I’m familiar…”

“Not familiar enough. Are you doing this job seriously?”

“It’s, uh, my first…my first day…”

“This is really a dumb mistake,” Yokoyama pressed, and Nino was just waiting for him to bare his fangs, but then there was a quick interruption.

“Yoko, that’s enough.”

It was an unfamiliar voice, but soon enough he learned who it belonged to. It was Sakurai Sho, in another one of his suits, patting Yokoyama on the shoulder. He turned to look at Nino, and thankfully this time it didn’t make him feel like collapsing into a puddle of goo. Even so he was better looking up close, if a little…dorkier? Maybe he wasn’t using his fancy vampire glamor and this was what he really looked like. Your average salaryman, if a bit pale.

“He gave me an expired box of treats, Sho-kun.”

Sakurai took the box from Yokoyama’s hands, peering inside. “Ah, that’s too bad, but you know how things have been the last few months. You should be glad our new guy’s at least trying to clean up the mess in there. It’s not like we’ve done anything about it ourselves.”

Nino decided then and there that there were many things to like about vampires, at least ones in suits with rather perfect hair. 

“If you’d like, Yokoyama-san, I could throw that away for you,” Nino offered, barely able to look Sakurai in the face. It was almost easier to look at Yokoyama’s surly sneer.

“You’d better!” the vampire complained before stomping off, leaving the box behind.

Sakurai leaned against the counter as soon as Yokoyama was gone, and then it truly was all over. Nino’s life as a person with normal sexual attractions, that is. Sakurai had a mouth full of gleaming white teeth, and they all seemed to show when he smiled. Well, except the fangs, those weren’t out right now.

“I’m sorry about him. He complains just to complain, comes with being a relatively new vampire. He’s only been here a few years, and it happens to all of us. Kind of like a teenage hormone imbalance. And he’s forgetful, too. He’s pretty bad about paying bills, he drops things everywhere, and I think Misako-san kept a file on him,” Sakurai explained, pointing one of his perfect, pale vampire fingers past Nino to the computer. “Like, to give Yoko a reminder that he hasn’t paid his Internet bill yet. He’s had the power go out on him once or twice too, and it’s not pleasant to be around him when that happens.”

“I see,” Nino said, nodding quickly and hoping Sakurai couldn’t smell the strange sweaty combination of fear and attraction that was probably radiating from him in waves. “I’ll..I’ll remember that, thank you.”

Sakurai smiled again, setting his briefcase on the counter and opening it. He pulled out a business card, holding it out. Nino took it with both hands. _Sakurai Sho, Starlight Kiss Tours_. What the heck was that? “I’m Sho, I’m in 6B. Although you probably know that already since you dropped off some things for us earlier.”

Nino didn’t bother to ask who “us” was because Sakurai was soon joined at the reception window by the man from the other night. Who was definitely better looking up close than he’d been from one floor up. Matsumoto Jun was human, but he seemed to have no shame about who he was and his place here in the enclave. Haughty, proud, words Nino wouldn’t have associated with a blood contract until now. Matsumoto Jun, all business, was maybe an inch or two taller than Sakurai and definitely a few inches taller than Nino. 

He didn’t shrink or cower in Sakurai’s presence. He stood at his side almost like an equal, which Nino thought was kind of crazy. Just what kind of relationship did these two have?

“Matsumoto-kun, I was just introducing myself to our new Daylight Specialist…”

“Nino.”

“Nino?” Matsumoto asked, his voice a lot less friendly than the vampire who, in effect, owned him. There was a cynicism, a harshness in his entire demeanor that made Nino intensely curious about what his life was like, being a BC, living with a vampire by choice.

“I mean Ninomiya,” Nino stuttered, unsure where he was even supposed to look. He was usually really good with people, even if he didn’t _like_ most people. He could carry on a conversation with almost anyone. Apparently that skill had not followed him into the Amagasa Vampire Enclave. “My name’s Ninomiya. Ninomiya Kazunari. But people call me Nino. I don’t mind it. It’s…it’s easier. Fewer…syllables to memorize.”

“I see,” Sakurai said, chuckling quietly as he shut his briefcase. He nudged his companion.

“Matsumoto Jun.” He bowed politely, almost too formally. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he managed to mumble in reply.

“Keep up the good work. Don’t let Yoko get to you or you’ll never get anything done. Thanks for helping us out,” Sakurai said before giving Matsumoto a quick nod.

Without words, the two of them headed for the exit, Sakurai with his briefcase and Matsumoto with a surprisingly adorable Funasshi bento box. 

Nino didn’t know how long he stood at the counter, unable to breathe normally, before he finally remembered to pull down the shutter again to lock it.

—

It was four days in to his new job that the Bureau of Undead Management came calling. Aiba took his “friendly security guy” shtick down a few notches, looking professional as he stood at attention upon buzzing in the woman in the entryway. She had an enigmatic air, with long dark hair and an odd little quirk to her mouth as she entered the Amagasa lobby.

Aiba moved to greet her with a nod of his head, and Nino didn’t know if he was expected to come out of the mail room. He stayed at his reception window, hoping he looked passingly competent. Aiba walked with the woman over to him. She set down a briefcase at her feet, her hand shooting out to him.

“Agent Yoshitaka Yuriko, Bureau of Undead Management.” She cocked her head. “You must be the new Daylight Specialist here.”

Nino shook her hand. It was freezing cold, but otherwise there was a real steadiness to her. Probably came with who she was, part of the government department that monitored the vampire population. Aiba had given Nino the quick and dirty overview, that Agent Yoshitaka (no cute Aiba nickname) had been visiting Amagasa for at least three years now. She appeared weekly for inspections and was the only legal recourse the vampires had if they wished to file a complaint about human harassment or against another enclave.

The government had been tracking vampire numbers since the Meiji period to some extent, an era when they’d been far less cooperative. Now they had agents who inspected enclaves week to week, checking to make sure their counts were correct. In case new vampires had been sired and not yet reported to the ward office. In case a new blood contract moved in. In case fugitive vampires who didn’t like to play by the rules were being harbored on site. In exchange for the vampires’ cooperation, the Bureau of Undead Management “allowed” vampires to operate businesses of their own, to have bank accounts and get driver’s licenses. Even travel, although it was strictly regulated and heavily tracked. And yet Japan was considered pretty lax, at least compared to some nations in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe that microchipped vampires to keep an eye on them.

“Ninomiya Kazunari. Nice to meet you.”

Agent Yoshitaka withdrew her hand. “Since you’re new, I’ll tell you how this works.” Her head disappeared as she started digging around in her briefcase and then she popped up again with a swish of her long, straight hair. She was a bit unnerving, a little strange in her movements. Like she was from another planet and still getting used to her human suit. Well, at least that was how Aiba had described her, and he was surprisingly accurate.

She had a tablet computer, opening a document that had a list of names and apartment numbers. “This is the current list of residents for Amagasa.” By now, the names looked rather familiar to Nino, and he nodded. “Aiba-san has been filling in for the last few months, but now it’s on you to tell me if there have been any changes.” She looked up with curious, almost too serious eyes. “Have there been any changes?”

“No.”

She jotted something down on her tablet. “If you lie to me for any reason, ever, it’s a treasonable offense.”

“Seriously?” he mumbled, and she looked up at him again, quite sharply.

“Vampires that are not accounted for pose a threat to national security, Ninomiya-san.” She offered him a kind of creepy smile. “So please be a dear and always tell the truth. We’ll be friends that way, you and I.”

“That sounds lovely,” he said, swallowing down his fear. So far Agent Yoshitaka Yuriko, Bureau of Undead Management, was almost as scary as the enclave’s residents. Treason? Yikes.

“In addition to tracking the populace here, I will expect to be informed of any abnormal circumstances. Is someone going out of town? Has anyone given notice about moving in the next few months? Is anyone behaving strangely…”

“They’re vampires, Agent Yoshitaka.” She raised an eyebrow, and he cleared his throat. “I mean, everything about them is still a bit strange to me.”

“Well then tell me everything, and I’ll decide what qualifies as something the government needs to know. Please follow me, and we’ll begin the inspections.”

Behind her, Aiba was giving a thumbs up at his desk. Nino quickly hurried from the mail room, locking the door behind him. The inspection part of Agent Yoshitaka’s visit didn’t sit well with him. It wasn’t enough that the vampires wore badges or armbands once they left home. It wasn’t enough that Nino told her there were no changes, aside from him being hired. And that still wasn’t enough. No, the inspections were mandatory. Yoshitaka would enter every single Amagasa apartment to confirm the presence of each vampire (and each BC). It seemed like a huge violation of privacy, especially since it happened during daytime when the vampires were most vulnerable. But they had no choice. It was the law.

As Daylight Specialist, it was Nino’s job to accompany her on her inspections. Joshima’s words from his job interview were ringing in his ears. How this was his home, how he wanted to protect his people. He was placing complete trust in Nino, and he realized just what that meant. This woman was entering their apartments, and it was Nino’s duty to make sure she didn’t do anything harmful.

Aiba had a master set of keys for the building locked up at his workstation, and he handed the massive keyring over. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered. “She’s weird, but she’s not really that bad.”

He walked back to Yoshitaka, who left her briefcase behind and only took her tablet with her to the elevator. Over the next hour they went door to door, Nino unlocking each apartment without knocking or announcing himself first. But truth be told, Agent Yoshitaka was as professional as one could possibly be when entering a citizen’s apartment. She removed her shoes every time in the apartment’s genkan, and though she didn’t join Nino in mumbling a “pardon my intrusion” upon stepping inside fully, she was quick and efficient. 

She didn’t touch any of the residents’ belongings, merely going straight to the bedroom to take a look at their sleep units, confirming the resident was inside. The computer panels on the side noted that the units were occupied, so she thankfully didn’t have to roll down the lids and peek inside. Nino followed right behind her, and her speed nearly got him knocked over a few times because he miscalculated her route through the apartments. Once each apartment was locked up again, Yoshitaka merely tapped something on her tablet. A confirmation of sorts, Nino guessed.

He still wasn’t familiar with every resident besides their names or maybe their magazine subscriptions, but it still felt awkward to enter their apartments. Everyone knew what day Yoshitaka was coming though, Aiba had told him. Most of the residents tidied up a little. Some even left little post-it notes. “Welcome, Big Brother!” had been written on a post-it on Murakami’s fridge. Ohno and Maruyama, vampire roommates, had even left their door unlocked, which got another creepy smile from Agent Yoshitaka. Nino had still locked it behind him, feeling guilty.

Nino had felt worst of all when they’d gotten to 6B. Yoshitaka hadn’t said anything when Nino’s fingers had fumbled nervously upon turning the key in the lock. Even resting, vampires could probably still awaken and cause damage if provoked. Maybe she just thought he was afraid. Sakurai and Matsumoto’s apartment was the second one they visited that contained a vampire and their human BC.

A floor below them, the bedroom hadn’t contained a sleep unit like the one in Joshima’s apartment, or like most of the others they’d entered. In that apartment, there’d been two futons side by side, and Nino hadn’t even known which of the residents was the vampire. They’d simply been two people, asleep, in an apartment where all natural light was completely blocked out. There’d been a small night-light plugged in, ostensibly so Yoshitaka could make visual confirmation that the residents were present, but otherwise it looked like two normal people, asleep.

Yoshitaka, tablet in hand, stepped right on in to Sakurai’s apartment. Nino tried not to look too closely, but it was hard not to take the place in. It was one of the larger apartments in the building, with furniture that wasn’t brand new, but looked cozy. A sofa in the living room with a nice TV, bookshelves almost overflowing. A kitchen that for once seemed to contain food. A knife block, pots and pans hanging from a rack that had been suspended from the ceiling. Nino couldn’t bear to follow Yoshitaka to the bedroom, even if he was intensely curious about the sleeping arrangements. Two sleep units? Two futons? One big bed with two hot guys spooning? 

Sakurai and Matsumoto didn’t seem to leave at the same time every night, and Nino had only seen them once more since the first night. They’d merely greeted him politely before heading out the door, to work, Nino assumed. They walked side by side but didn’t hold hands or physically touch. Although it was hard to really know anything from observing someone a grand total of five minutes. Were they dating? Was Matsumoto’s BC status more of a business deal? Why did this even matter? Nino lingered in the space between their living area and the kitchen, spying a photograph of two people on the refrigerator.

Ah, now he was getting somewhere. “Sorry,” he muttered quietly, wondering if vampires had super hearing, even in their rest times. He was just about to get a good look at the picture when Yoshitaka came out of the bedroom, not bothering to muffle the sound of her socked feet sliding across the hardwood floors.

“Ninomiya-san, that’s rude.”

He looked away from the photo. “Ah, right. You’re right,” he said, even if he wasn’t the person checking vampires off a damn list. He followed her out of 6B and locked the door.

The photograph had been of Matsumoto and someone who wasn’t Sakurai Sho. The other person had been a woman, a little younger than him, with long black hair. The both of them had been directing peace signs at the camera, Matsumoto’s arm wrapped comfortably around her shoulder. Behind them, a bright sunny day, a sandy beach. 

And Matsumoto Jun had been smiling.

—

By the end of his second week on the job, Nino had set up an official work email account in hopes of streamlining his duties. When he was off the clock, he’d still get a notice on his phone and could at least try to assist if there was an emergency. If there was one thing he’d learned so far, it was that communicating with people on a completely opposite sleep schedule was a problem. In the mornings he’d come into the mail room to find notes jammed under the door. 

_“Need a plumber ASAP, leaking shower!”_

_“My shower is still leaking!”_

_“What the hell is your damn phone number, Ninomiya?!”_

_“I fixed it.”_

And those were all from one person, who had apparently gone up and down in the elevator each time to complain, even though Nino wasn’t there. Kokubun Taichi-san, his most consistent complainer after Yokoyama.

He was proud of his new email account, putting a notice in everyone’s mailbox and posting a flyer on the cork board in the elevator bank. His flyer was kind of a welcome change from the ones about XYZ blood bank that apparently was lax in testing for certain diseases, so stay away, or a “hate watch” night taking place at a vampire-owned movie theater in Shibuya (this week’s showing: Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn Part One).

Getting emails would also be a good workaround for those vampires who had terrible handwriting. For ones that left massive envelopes of cash in their mailboxes, expecting Nino to know precisely which bank they wanted it deposited in. It would be a much better paper trail to present to Agent Yoshitaka on her visits, if she wanted to know anything that damn specific.

Nino had also been asked to leave the premises a few times beyond standard bank trips. He’d gotten to take the little Toyota hatchback in the garage for a spin, driving one of the BCs to a lunch date with her mother. Erika had a blood contract with Murakami, though from Erika’s frank complaints about him in the car, theirs was not a romantic arrangement. Although Nino suspected that it might have been in the past. Nino didn’t ask many questions, merely chaperoning Erika to her meal and waiting just outside. According to the rules, he was supposed to stay within ten feet of her at all times (“protecting the merchandise,” Aiba had teased), but she and her mother had kindly had their meal by the restaurant’s window, within Nino’s sight. He’d felt a little creepy, sitting outside, but it had actually been kind of nice to get out of Ota Ward during the day. To get out of his little mail room and the finally thinning piles of junk mail.

When they’d pulled back onto their street, Erika had stopped him with a hand to his wrist. “Wait.”

He’d pulled over, parked. “Hmm?”

She’d sat in the car, closing her eyes, breathing in and out calmly for a few minutes. He couldn’t help but let his gaze wander to her neck, where there was a small bandage. A reminder of what she was. Erika had caught him staring but hadn’t yelled at him. “It’s just nice to get outside once in a while. When the sun’s out.”

Nino wondered if Matsumoto Jun felt that way. Nino had snuck another peek at the refrigerator in his and Sakurai’s apartment when Agent Yoshitaka had visited again, but there wasn’t much more to glean from the photograph of Matsumoto and that woman. If it was a girlfriend or something, Nino wondered what Sakurai thought about Matsumoto displaying it so openly in the home they shared. But if it was just a sister, a friend, did it hurt Matsumoto to see it? The reminder of a life he didn’t have now?

As much as it wasn’t his business, Nino had spent his idle time trying to learn more about Matsumoto, about Sakurai. Nino had Sakurai’s business card and had looked up Starlight Kiss Tours on the Internet. It was a travel agency for vampires. Sakurai organized tours for small groups, within Japan and overseas. Presumably Matsumoto worked with him, since they left Amagasa together in business attire on most nights. The website had been a little simple, and there wasn’t much to be said about a bunch of pictures of famous places taken at night when nobody else was around. Night view from the Sapporo TV Tower. Night view from Kiyomizudera in Kyoto. Night view from what was apparently the Brooklyn Bridge.

It seemed like a nice service, but Nino was a little saddened by an announcement that appeared on the website when he’d refreshed it that morning. 

_“The government of Cambodia has once again declined our request for entry visas. It is with regret that Starlight Kiss is canceling the August tour to Angkor Wat and Siem Reap. We deeply apologize and will issue full refunds to those who have already reserved places.”_

Nino knew exactly why the entry visas were declined, and not for the first time, he found himself feeling angry on behalf of the vampires. He wondered how Sakurai dealt with such a stressful and irritating job. All the effort that went into planning a trip, especially for his kind, only to have to cancel when a government or a hotel or a tourism bureau got cold feet.

The bell at the reception window dinged, startling Nino out of his reverie. He was spending way too much time worrying about the trials and tribulations of Sakurai Sho and Matsumoto Jun, for someone who didn’t say more than a handful of words to them when he saw them. He was just the guy who put their mail in their box, who waved ‘goodbye’ to them if he was still on duty when they left for the evening.

He hurriedly minimized the Starlight Kiss website, getting to his feet. Without realizing it, it was already after 8:00 PM. Some nights he ended up staying late in the mail room, surfing the Web or enduring one of Yokoyama’s complaints. By this point, Nino thought Yokoyama just enjoyed coming downstairs to argue with him about stupid shit.

Nino tried to keep his expression neutral, but that was getting increasingly difficult whenever Maruyama Ryuhei was standing at the window dinging the bell. 

Maru was a vampire, but a strange one. Well, they were all pretty damn strange in their own ways, but Maru was particularly weird. He stood stiffly at the window, staring at the countertop. “Hey Maru, what do you want tonight?” Nino asked. “Were you expecting any deliveries today?”

Maruyama shook his head. For someone who was tall and muscular, he certainly wasn’t very tough. “H-hey Ninomiya-kun…hey.”

For almost a week now, Maru kept coming downstairs when the sun had barely set, dinging the bell but then having nothing to say. “You need something?”

Maru laughed, a bit too loudly, scratching at the back of his head. “Get a lot of packages in today?”

“Uh, the usual amount?”

“Hahaha, great!”

Nino crossed his arms, trying to keep from laughing. If Nino didn’t know any better, he’d think Maruyama had a crush on him. Mercifully, Nino’s savior arrived earlier than usual. Ohno Satoshi was the vampire who had actually sired Maruyama about a year and a half earlier, and Nino kind of got the impression that Ohno slightly regretted his choice. Ohno was a bit sluggish and lethargic for a vampire, and he strolled into the lobby with his usual gear: fishing rod, tackle box, baseball cap. He and his buddy from another enclave, Matsuoka, ran night fishing tours out on Tokyo Bay. Maru apparently went with him for lack of much else to do as a fairly new vampire. Nino had never known there were so many fishing magazines in the world, as Ohno Satoshi appeared to subscribe to every single one. It seemed like a new one was arriving every day.

“Maru, leave him alone,” Ohno complained, setting down his tackle box on the counter. Nino pressed his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing when Ohno punched his roommate in the arm. “Oi, why do you keep doing this? You’re so disgusting.”

“It’s fine, Ohno-san. Maru and I were just talking about the deliveries.”

Ohno shoved his fishing rod into Maruyama’s hand. “Totally disgusting. You’re going to make him quit if you keep bothering him.” Ohno inclined his head apologetically. “Nino, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Nino repeated, seeing Maru’s pale face redden in embarrassment. “Really, it’s fine.”

“Oh-chan, maybe if Nino and I just exchanged numbers…”

Ohno’s peaceful face contorted into something rather ugly, and Nino wanted to crawl behind his counter and laugh until his belly ached. “Let’s go, the sea bass aren’t going to catch themselves.”

Ohno offered one last apology before giving Maruyama a light kick in the ass, grabbing his tackle box and heading out into the night. Once the door closed, Nino doubled over, laughing. Maruyama was a young vampire, Nino tried to remind himself. He wasn’t in complete control of himself yet. It wasn’t right to make fun of him…

“Something funny?”

He looked up at the sound of Matsumoto Jun’s voice, his laughter coming to a swift end. It was a Saturday night, and Matsumoto wasn’t in his usual dress shirt, tie, and slacks. He was in a tight-fitting white v-neck t-shirt that made Nino really glad that there was a counter separating them. And he was especially glad that said counter came all the way up to his waist.

“Matsumoto-san, good evening,” he said, nodding his head.

He didn’t expect Matsumoto to then fling a magazine at him, and he ducked. Well, not fast enough. It still smacked him in the shoulder. He was shaking a bit when he picked it up from the floor. He set it down, examining it. “Does Sakurai-san not actually subscribe to _Travel Planner Monthly_? If you’ve been billed for this in error, I can give the publisher a call and…”

“Do you pay attention to what you’re doing?” Matsumoto asked, a coldness in his voice that got Nino to quit babbling immediately. There was fury in his dark, expressive eyes. Like it was taking everything in his power not to leap over the counter and choke Nino. He was glad that Matsumoto was still human and thus had limited potential as far as neck snapping went. “Do you?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” he managed to squeak out in reply. Not his finest moment on the job, by far. Although it was after hours, and he really ought to go home.

Matsumoto thumped the counter with his index finger. “Open the fucking thing.”

Nino swallowed, opening the cover. He was greeted with an advertisement encouraging him to consider the Maldives for his next summer holiday. He looked up, seeing Matsumoto’s rage had not yet dissipated. 

“Keep going.”

Nino turned another page and frowned. “DIE VAMPIRE” was written in heavy black ink. He looked up. Matsumoto raised one of his thick eyebrows. Nino turned another page. “DIE VAMPIRE.” Another. “DIE VAMPIRE.” Another.

He shut the magazine and lowered his head to Matsumoto. “I’m very, very sorry.”

“So you just take in whatever mail gets delivered and shove it in the box and that’s it, huh?” Matsumoto continued. He was almost shaking in his anger. “You think that sort of thing is okay?”

“I…I didn’t write that in there, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“That is not what I’m saying,” Matsumoto hissed at him. “I’m asking if you pay attention. At all.”

“I don’t read the mail that gets delivered here, it’s none of my business.”

“It’s full of death threats!” Matsumoto shouted, and this time he pounded his fist on the counter. The bell let out a pathetic little ding that would have been comical at any other time. Matsumoto reached a hand out, flipped the magazine over. While _Travel Planner Monthly_ ’s cover was clean, DIE VAMPIRE had been written quite plainly on the back of the thing. “He could have seen this!”

“What do you mean?”

“Sho-kun,” Matsumoto said. “We got home late yesterday, so we hadn’t gone through our mail yet. I saw this before he did. And I’m glad I did.”

Nino felt like the floor was about to drop out from under him. He lowered his head once again. “I’m truly sorry, Matsumoto-san. I’ll be more careful with the magazines from now on. I swear to you. I swear.”

“I want to file a complaint with the Bureau,” Matsumoto said. “This is unacceptable. This got past the post office and it got past you. Completely unacceptable.”

“I agree,” Nino said, shutting his eyes. He hated that this was the longest conversation he’d had thus far with Matsumoto Jun. “I’m sorry. But since the magazine was intended for Sakurai-san, it might gain more traction if he filed the complaint himself…”

“You want me to go upstairs and tell him someone wants him dead? Is that what you want me to do?”

He looked up, shaking his head. Nino doubted that the threat was specifically against Sakurai, since it didn’t call him out by name. People weren’t stupid. The enclave was out in the open. “I…I don’t know what you want me to do, Matsumoto-san. I’ve apologized. I’ve told you exactly what Agent Yoshitaka at the Bureau would probably tell you. If you…if you want to take action, then you’ll have to go about it the right way. And…and why don’t you want Sakurai-san to know?”

Matsumoto looked aside, trying to calm down. When he met Nino’s eyes again, the rage had mostly been replaced with fear. “I don’t want anything to happen to him. I don’t want anyone to hurt him.”

Nino was quickly realizing that the blood contract between Matsumoto and Sakurai was probably not a simple business arrangement. Not with the sincerity, the depth of feeling in Matsumoto’s eyes. “I understand that…”

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you possibly can,” Matsumoto said. He looked down, wincing. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this…”

“What?”

“Sho-kun trusts humans. He believes that humans, by default, are good. But this magazine is proof that we’re not.”

Nino crossed his arms, leaning on the counter. “Matsumoto-san, is it really your place to keep this from him? He’s a vampire, surely he can look after himself.”

Matsumoto took the magazine back, rolling it up in his hands. Nino almost wished he’d get angry again. He wasn’t sure what to think of this frightened man standing before him. For the first time, Nino took a close look at him, at something besides his face, the shape of his body. There was no bandaging on Matsumoto Jun’s neck. Instead he saw the red scarring there on Matsumoto’s otherwise pale skin, the two freshest puncture wounds that had scabbed over, and the remnants of wounds from months before, maybe even years. Sakurai didn’t always hit the same spot, but he came pretty damn close. Matsumoto didn’t hide them.

“If the only way the Bureau will listen is if he files the complaint himself, then I’ll see what I can do to convince him. He’s not the only one who’s gotten stuff like this around here.”

“Recently?” Nino asked in surprise, wondering just how many magazines he’d let slip by him. He felt terrible.

“No,” Matsumoto replied quickly, and Nino wished he could exhale in relief. “No, it’s been months. At least that I’m aware of. They don’t…they never like to talk about it. Maybe it’s as you say, that they can look after themselves but…”

“I’m sorry, Matsumoto-san. For my carelessness. If Sakurai-san needs my help, he can contact me at any time.” Which was a line he’d been preparing for a while now, even if he hadn’t expected to have a reason to use it. “You both can. Whatever you need. I’m here to help, I promise.”

Matsumoto said nothing else, twisting the magazine in his hands as he slowly walked back to the elevator bank. 

Nino had difficulty sleeping that night. All he could think about was the heavy writing on all those pages. DIE VAMPIRE. He imagined being Matsumoto Jun, seeing such a horrible threat aimed at his…aimed at his what, exactly? His roommate? His friend? His…

Nino turned over, scrunching the blankets around himself and sighing. It was none of his business, whatever they were to each other. But even when he shut his eyes, he could see the scarring on Matsumoto’s neck, proof that again and again he let Sakurai drink from him. The intimacy of that, the trust inherent in that—trusting that Sakurai would take only enough to ease his hunger, over and over. That in itself had to forge a strong bond between two people, between vampire and BC.

Matsumoto trusted Sakurai in ways Nino couldn’t even imagine. No wonder he’d been so upset. And it was Nino’s fault that he was upset at all. 

Finally he flung his covers off, reaching only for his keys and his sneakers, not caring if anyone saw his bed hair or the t-shirt and trunks he slept in. He went back to work at 3:30 in the morning, eyes squinting in the darkness of the mail room as he booted up the computer, went through his form letter templates. He got one ready, in case Sakurai wanted to use it. _Official complaint form - Harassment_.

Amagasa’s vampires could probably kill you in seconds. But even vampires needed protecting. Nino decided then and there that he would be that protector.


	3. Chapter 3

The day was passing in agonizing slowness. It had been three days since Matsumoto had come down to complain about the defaced magazine, and unexpectedly, Nino had gotten a follow-up response. Although it hadn’t been the response he had expected. 

When he’d come in to the mail room that morning, a note had been slipped under his door, written out neatly on paper that bore a Starlight Kiss Tours logo. It was information that could have easily been conveyed in an email, but perhaps Sakurai Sho preferred a proper letter.

_Ninomiya-san, thank you for your continued diligence in serving the Amagasa community. In regards to what you and Matsumoto-kun spoke about the other night, would you be able to meet with us for dinner this evening? If not, please let us know if you have any time in the coming week. I’ll come down to speak with you at sundown._

_Yours sincerely,  
Sakurai Sho_

Sakurai didn’t want to file a complaint? Or if he did, he was going to wait until they met in person. And dinner? Sakurai wanted Nino to have dinner with them? He was just the guy in the mail room, why did they want to hang out with him?

He spun around lazily in his office chair, sneakers skidding along the linoleum and eyes fixed on the ceiling. Dinner. Dinner with Sakurai Sho, vampire and Matsumoto Jun, person bitten on a regular basis by said vampire. They wanted to spend time with him. He had almost shown Aiba the letter, but instead he’d folded it up, slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. If he started talking to Aiba the gossiping housewife about it, then the whole building would catch on. Because Nino knew for a fact that he wasn’t just intrigued by the occupants of 6B. He _liked_ the occupants of 6B. Mostly in the physical sense, since he barely knew them. But he wanted to know them. He wanted to know everything about them. Not just Matsumoto. Not just Sakurai. Both of them.

The hours and minutes passed with agonizing slowness that afternoon, the sun hanging in the Tokyo sky for far longer than Nino wished it would, here in the dead middle of summer. He’d already run his necessary errands for the day, putting gas in the Amagasa car, hitting up the bank, and visiting the ward office to file some paperwork on behalf of a resident of the fourth floor who was moving north to Aomori at the end of the month. Now he was stuck in the office, wishing his imagination was far less vivid than it truly was.

While he’d been sorting the mail earlier after Kazama’s visit, he’d played out a scenario in his mind where Matsumoto held him down and the actual “dinner date” involved Sakurai sucking his blood. It had scared him, such a scenario, but it had also thrilled him. Then there’d been another imagined evening where they went to some fancy restaurant, the three of them, and the smell of all the rich food had made the vampire ill—Nino had then taken Sakurai to the hospital, an arm around his waist and whispering encouraging little “there, there, it’ll be alright” messages in his ear.

It should have alarmed Nino that his Sakurai and Matsumoto problem was growing so quickly. That he’d only been at Amagasa for a few weeks and he had already bypassed the “these people don’t annoy me that much” stage into the full-blown “I wonder how ugly his face is when he gets off” stage. Nino had happily lived his entire life as a commitment phobe, so why on earth was he allowing himself to be attracted to two people (TWO people!) who were already locked into an extremely committed arrangement?

The heart wants what it wants. At least that was what Aiba had said gleefully to Kazama the other day when the mailman had gifted Aiba with a pornographic magazine featuring lady mail carriers wearing only their mailbags.

Nino groaned to himself, ceasing his chair spinning to get up and do some cleaning. Maybe dusting the corners of the mail room and using a spray can of compressed air on the computer’s ancient keyboard would get his mind out of the gutter. After the cleaning, he decided to repress his sexual thoughts by falling into a Wikipedia black hole on the office computer, reading about several unsexy topics like the helmets and armor of Japanese armies through the ages, allergies and pollen (since Aiba apparently suffered from hay fever every spring), and bioluminescent sea creatures like firefly squid.

Before too long, Aiba was dinging the bell to let him know that he was leaving for the night, and moments later Sakurai Sho was leaning on the counter calling out a hello.

“Nino, good evening!”

Nino turned away from the computer, hoping Sakurai wasn’t going to peek too closely and wonder why he was reading about squid. “Hey,” he replied, leaning back in the chair and trying not to panic. Tonight Sakurai was in more casual clothes, a long-sleeved green plaid button down over a gray t-shirt. He looked good in whatever he wore, that much was clear to Nino.

“Did you get my note? Sorry to invite you so suddenly.” Sakurai grinned. “Are you able to make it?”

“Yeah!” Nino coughed quietly, clearing his throat and trying to sound a little more nonchalant. He failed, most likely. “I mean, yeah, I’ve got some time now. But is it really okay? Dinner, I mean. Since you’re…you know…”

“Since I don’t eat?” Sakurai asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Since you don’t eat.”

Sakurai laughed, the force of it shaking his whole damn vampire body. Nino hated how much he liked Sakurai’s cheerful, boisterous laugh. It nudged Nino’s existing attraction from mere sexual curiosity into far more dangerous “we can totally just be friends first, if you want” territory.

“I still like the smell of food, lots of different things,” Sakurai admitted, scratching his chin. “I was always a big eater, before. Sometimes I still eat regular food, even if it makes me sick.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun to me.”

“Well, I’m very fortunate, having Matsumoto-kun around. He’s an excellent cook. I can smell what he cooks for himself and sometimes he’ll make some treats for me. Things I can digest without getting sick.”

“Ah, that’s…” Nino said, his voice trailing off, realizing exactly why that creepy-looking _Cooking with Blood_ magazine had come in the mail for Matsumoto the other day. He literally cooked with blood.

“So that’s why I’m here,” Sakurai said. “We’re actually staying in tonight, and Matsumoto-kun is cooking. Do you like hamburger steak?”

His eyes widened. It was like Sakurai had just thrust his hand straight through Nino’s chest to give his heart a squeeze. “Actually, that’s my favorite.”

Sakurai raised his hand, gesturing for Nino to come closer. He got out of his chair nervously, making his way to the reception window. Sakurai leaned forward, chuckling. “Actually, I asked Aiba-kun the other day. I hope you’ll forgive me for spying around about you.”

Nino spent at least an hour a day reading the backlog of blog entries Sakurai posted on the Starlight Kiss Tours website (including today’s Top 5 Blood-Infused Dining Destinations — Shanghai), so really, who ought to apologize for spying?

“I would be happy to join you, Sakurai-san,” he said. “Just let me lock up.”

“You can just call me Sho,” the vampire insisted with another of his deadly smiles, and Nino was decidedly doomed.

—

This time Nino was a little less ashamed to be entering Sakurai and Matsumoto’s apartment. This time he had actually been invited and wasn’t being forced to accompany Agent Yoshitaka inside. He slipped out of his shoes, and Sho went racing out of the genkan with a panicky, but adorable “wait, wait, just hold on a minute!”

He returned quickly, using a pair of scissors to snip a tag off of a brand new pair of guest slippers. He set them down for Nino to use. “Sorry,” Sho apologized. “Not exactly used to having people over.”

Nino accepted the slippers graciously, stepping up and into the apartment. There were no surprises, really, aside from the lights being on. He could already smell the sizzling meat coming from the kitchen, and he followed Sho to find Matsumoto Jun, in another of his devastating t-shirts, poised over his frying pan.

“Hello,” Matsumoto acknowledged him, although he seemed far less enthusiastic about Nino being there than Sho was.

“Hello,” Nino replied, remembering how angry Matsumoto had been with him the other day.

“It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” Matsumoto gestured to another pan on the stovetop. “Veggie stir-fry to go with it, if that’s okay?”

Nothing made Nino happier than when someone cooked for him. Aiba had been kind enough to do so several times since he’d moved in, knocking on Nino’s door late at night with a pan full of leftovers. It wasn’t the sort of thing he was used to, being pampered with food. His parents were both in the culinary profession, but neither of them liked to cook at home. “Nobody’s paying me here,” his mother usually joked before calling in a delivery order when Nino stopped by for visits.

Sho opened the fridge, and Nino couldn’t help but peek inside. There seemed to be a clear demarcation splitting the refrigerator in half. One side was mostly empty, save for some bottled blood specialty drinks and some Tupperware containers filled with god only knew what. The other side was clearly Matsumoto’s side, with fresh produce, bottles of soy and Worcestershire sauce, eggs…

Sho grabbed a can of beer from Matsumoto’s stash. “Here, can I put this in a glass for you?”

“Sure, thanks.”

It was full service, Sho bringing him over to the small dining table they had. On days when Nino had been in here with Yoshitaka, the table was usually piled up with mail, with a laptop computer, with travel guidebooks. Today it was cleared and set for dinner, and Nino had a seat. Sho returned a few moments later, pouring the beer out into a glass for him. Nino accepted it gratefully, and Sho sat down in the seat across from him. Apparently Matsumoto would be sitting on the side, between the two of them.

It was a little awkward, waiting for Matsumoto to finish up in the kitchen. Sho asked him kind of boring questions about the weather, about a bank transaction Nino had carried out for him the other day, before Matsumoto came in with two plates - one for himself and one for Nino. It smelled perfect, and Matsumoto was all too generous with sauce. Nino’s attentions had mostly been on Sho until now, but the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and Matsumoto had probably succeeded, just going on how damn good it smelled.

“He makes everything from scratch,” Sakurai bragged, having a sip from one of his vampire drinks. Thankfully, the drinks were kept in very dark glass bottles so you couldn’t really see the thick liquid it had inside. 

“Not everything,” Matsumoto mumbled, although he seemed obviously pleased with the compliment. He met Sho’s gaze briefly. “Want anything?”

Sho replied with the slightest of head shakes, and Matsumoto untied the apron he’d had around his narrow waist, tossing it onto the kitchen counter before joining them for dinner. If Nino got in a time machine and told the Nino of only a few weeks earlier that he’d soon be having a meal with a vampire and his BC in their apartment, he wouldn’t have believed it. But here he was, enjoying their hospitality, such as it was.

It was a little strange, handling a fork and knife while Sakurai Sho sat opposite him, not eating anything. Matsumoto dug into his dinner without hesitation, far more used to eating solo, Nino supposed. Nino had a million questions, all the more since he’d been invited into their home. All the more since he was sitting at their table, eating the best hamburger steak he’d had in ages, cooked by someone he barely knew. But Sho’s letter had implied that this meet-up was about the other night, about the defaced magazine, so Nino held his questions, deciding that he’d only ask things if the mood was right.

Nino was so lost in his tasty meal that he almost missed an exchange happening at the table in front of him. It was all in their eyes. Sho looking at Matsumoto emphatically, Matsumoto doing everything in his power to avoid it before finally giving in, only to glare at Sho. There was a secret language going on here, and Nino was lost without the translation. There were eyebrow raises, a lip curled in disgust, an almost furious look from Sho, and finally Matsumoto set his fork down. It clunked against the plate loudly, and Nino chewed slowly, nervously. The meal was taking a sharp turn.

“Ninomiya-san…” Matsumoto began, looking uncomfortable. “I want to apologize.”

He set his own fork and knife down. “Apologize for what?”

Matsumoto’s jaw was clenched, as though getting these words out was the last thing he wanted. “I apologize for confronting you about the magazine. I apologize for being angry with you.”

Nino’s eyes widened. “No, that was my fault. I should have been more careful…”

Sho interrupted. “He made a big deal out of nothing. And I’ve asked him to apologize to you, for causing you any distress.”

“I’m sorry,” Matsumoto said again, though there wasn’t too much sincerity to it.

Nino was lost. “Okay…”

Sho fiddled with the label on his drink, poking at it with his thumbnail. “I prefer to live quietly and without incident. Without causing trouble for others,” Sho explained. “Complaining about that magazine to the government would put their eyes on us. I just want to run my business as best I can. Going out of my way to complain draws more scrutiny.” 

While Sakurai spoke, Nino could see cold fire ignite in Matsumoto’s eyes. Matsumoto still wanted Sho to file a complaint. Matsumoto was worried sick about it, and Nino understood his feelings a little better.

“With all due respect, Sho-san, it was a threat against your life. Matsumoto-san only wishes for you to…”

“I don’t care what he wishes,” Sho said flatly, as if Matsumoto wasn’t sitting two feet from him. “I will not be filing any complaints with the Bureau. Let’s just forget this happened and move on.”

They were quiet for a few moments before Matsumoto took up his fork again, started stabbing at the veggies on his plate, eating them with a crunch and refusing to look Sho’s way. Nino felt like he was in the middle of an argument that had started before he’d arrived, like an argument his parents would have had, which was definitely doing a good job keeping him from having sexy thoughts about Sho and Jun at present. Sho took a few more sips from his drink before clearing his throat.

“So Ninomiya-san, sorry for that unpleasantness. I thought having you over would be better than a simple apology, but if I’ve made you uncomfortable…”

“No, it’s alright,” he muttered. Stubborn. That was going to be his new word for Sakurai Sho. Couldn’t he see how upset Matsumoto was? Wasn’t he the slightest bit concerned about people scrawling such things in his magazine?

“Well then,” Sho continued. “Maybe you could tell us a little more about yourself. Since you’ve been such a help to us, we’d like to get to know you better.” Every time Sho said things like ‘us’ and ‘we,’ the irritation in Matsumoto’s face increased. He didn’t like Sho to speak on his behalf, or maybe he wasn’t terribly interested in getting to know Nino better. Or maybe, Nino thought, ashamed of himself for thinking it, Jun was jealous of the attention Sho was giving him.

In between bites, Nino gave answers. “There’s not much to tell,” he said. He told them about growing up, being in line to inherit his grandfather’s small factory but encouraging him to sell it instead. Pursuing his kind of lame dream of being a professional gamer, wanting a change (but not actually admitting to Sho and Jun it was because he was not making much money any longer). He told them about his job, the bits of it they didn’t know. Soon he was out of talking points, and Matsumoto took that time to grab his plate and fetch seconds for him.

When Matsumoto came back, setting another full plate before him, he felt bad. He’d gone to all this trouble, cooking for someone he didn’t seem to care for. Apologizing to Nino, even when he didn’t want to. All of this he’d done because Sho had wished it. Even though he was defiant, even though he argued, he still did what Sho wanted. Why?

Nino had given his side, he had another plate full of food before him. Questions were dangling off the tip of his tongue, like where was Jun from? How long had Sho been a vampire? How long had they been living at Amagasa? What was it like running a vampire travel agency? All of those questions and dozens more and instead he did the unthinkable.

“Sho-san, how long have you and Jun-kun been together?”

Matsumoto coughed, an almost comical, perfectly timed reaction, setting down his fork. He coughed a few more times before reaching for his glass of beer, downing a healthy sip of it. Sho watched Jun’s reaction carefully, not speaking, letting Nino’s question hang awkwardly in the air, long enough for Nino to wish he could take it back.

“I mean, the blood contract thing,” Nino amended, wondering just what kind of sore spot he’d managed to poke in asking his question. “How does that work, if you’ll forgive me for asking such a thing?”

“Blood contracts last for five years. They can be renewed,” Sho explained, even though Nino knew this. He knew it quite well, having fallen into an earlier Wikipedia black hole about that within days of starting his job. “Matsumoto-kun’s is up in a few months.”

Jun licked his lips, fingers tapping the table. He looked up, met Nino’s inquisitive gaze. “So I guess you could say we’ve been together for over four years.”

“How did you meet?” Nino asked, hoping this wasn’t as loaded a question as his first one.

“I’ve got a rare blood type,” Jun admitted, showing the briefest hint of a smile, the first Nino had seen from him all evening. “I was very popular at the blood banks for a while.”

Now it was Sho’s turn to look uncomfortable, fidgeting slightly in his chair. Seeing this, Jun’s bad mood finally started to shift. Nino supposed that the beer they were drinking was also helping to loosen his tongue.

Jun took a quick glance at Sho, seeing that he wasn’t interested in explaining. He turned back to Nino. “Sho-san and I met at Murakami-kun’s blood bank. You know Hina, right?”

He nodded.

“Hina’s a pain in the ass, but he’s a good businessman. On account of the rarity of my blood, I could fetch a high price. He would negotiate on my behalf, taking his cut of course, but I was making enough to quit my job. So I did.” Jun spoke with a frankness that surprised Nino. Visiting blood banks was still pretty taboo, at least to admit outright. Perhaps Jun didn’t really care what Nino thought.

Nino looked Sho’s way. There was a faraway look in his eyes, the longer Jun spoke. He couldn’t help interrupting. “Sho-san, were you his…customer?”

Sho was startled, waving a hand in front of his face. “Are you kidding? I’m a tour guide, I couldn’t afford him.”

Jun laughed at that, a gentle teasing laugh that Nino liked. It was a good change from earlier in the evening. “Hina’s usually really good about vetting people, but he’d been out of town visiting friends one night. Somehow this guy got in with fake credentials. When you go to a blood bank, you get entered into the system. There’s a whole network, online I mean. Donors have to submit medical records, proving the blood is clean, disease-free. The buyers, if you will, have to have a clean record in the vampire community.”

“And what does that mean?” Nino asked.

“It means you agree to take only what you need,” Sho said quietly. “You only get to fuck up once, and you’re gone. None of the reputable blood banks will let you in the door if you’ve got a blemish on your record.” 

Nino was fairly certain that ‘blemish’ was just a euphemism for ‘sucking someone dry and killing them.’ It sent a shudder down his spine.

“So this guy paid for me…” Jun’s smile was almost infectious. “Yeah, Ninomiya, I know what it sounds like. Anyhow, he was a rule breaker, and he took too much…”

“He almost killed you?!” Nino exclaimed.

“He would have, if Sho-san hadn’t heard me struggling. He’d been in the next room over, waiting for his own transaction.”

Sho looked down, embarrassed. “You’re making this more dramatic than it was…”

“He saved me,” Jun said boldly, daring Sho to contradict him. “Got me out of there, got me to a hospital. Bared his fangs at a doctor and demanded I get a transfusion. And it’s not easy to find my blood out there, either.”

“I did not bare my fangs,” Sho complained. “You get the sun for doing something like that.” 

Jun thumped his palm on the table emphatically. “Sho-san saved my life.”

“So you became his BC?” Nino asked, crossing his arms. “But you were making enough money to quit your job, you said…”

Jun’s expression grew a bit more serious. “Clearly you’ve never been in a life-threatening situation before. It can change your mind about things.” The angry look Jun gave Sho in that moment made Nino, a third party and an outsider, wince. Sho merely looked the other way.

The conversation died out soon after that, Jun making excuses about washing the dishes. Nino realized that he’d gotten what he’d asked for, wanting to know more about Sho and Jun. Sho had saved Jun’s life and in exchange, Jun had agreed to be his blood contract. Or Jun had offered without Sho having to ask. That much remained unclear, and from the strange way they seemed to behave around each other, Nino still didn’t know what they really thought about each other.

If they were together, in every sense of the word, wouldn’t they act like it? Would Sho really call his partner by his last name in every instance? But if they had been together at one point, had broken up, Nino would sense more animosity between them. He thought of Erika, Hina’s BC. They slept in separate rooms, despite the contract, and she was counting down the days until she was free of him. Jun doted on Sho and argued with him in equal measure. And Sho was polite and guarded, almost distant, acting like Jun was his colleague or his roommate by happenstance. Perhaps things were different when they were alone.

He simply couldn’t figure them out.

Sho escorted Nino from their apartment, walking him to the elevator. “I’m afraid we haven’t had any guests over for a while. I’m sorry if we don’t have the best dinner conversation habits.”

“No, I’m happy you invited me,” he replied, gathering his courage. “It’s nice to get to know you. Both of you, I mean. Most people in the building are still just a mailbox to me. I haven’t exactly been around vampires much before, so it’s all very new to me.”

“We’re not that different, I suppose,” Sho answered. They stood in the elevator banks, but neither of them had pressed the down button yet. “Well, aside from the fact that I won’t ever get any older.”

“That’s a luxury, huh?”

Sho shrugged. “I’m not so sure about that…”

Their eyes met, and for the first time, Nino could see sorrow in the depths of Sho’s dark eyes. He didn’t look that much older than Nino was, but Nino knew that wasn’t true. Meeting eyes with a vampire, knowing Sho had the power to end his life in seconds, it ought to have scared him. But Nino couldn’t look away, and he knew that Sho wasn’t using any secret vampire powers to lure him in. Sho didn’t have to do much at all to gain his attention.

He lowered his voice, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out, grabbing Sho’s arm. He had to keep himself from taking Sho’s hand and seeing what his skin felt like, how different and similar he really was. “How long? How long has it been?”

Sho knew exactly what he was asking. “I was 33 in 1982. And it’s been 33 years since then. 2015 is an interesting year for me.”

“You look good,” Nino mumbled shyly. “For an old man.”

Sho’s eyes were still so damn sad. A few quiet seconds passed before he spoke again.

“Please continue to keep Jun in your favor.”

“Huh?” Nino asked, stunned.

Sho finally pressed the button for the elevator, a rather phony smile back on his face. “We’ll do this again, the three of us. Good night, Nino.”

He turned and walked away when the elevator let out its cheery chime. Nino could only step inside, thinking of how different Sho’s voice had sounded. How with one mere syllable, with ‘Jun,’ Sho had revealed way more than he’d probably intended. 

—

Starlight Kiss Tours was running a tour to Fukuoka, a two-night tour that had Sho and Jun leaving Amagasa just after sunset a few nights later. The tour groups were very small, only a handful of vampires, on account of all the trouble that went into securing accommodations. It was Jun who had relayed details to Nino via email, so that he had a record to pass along to Yoshitaka-san if she needed it.

Traveling vampires were often screwed over by the schedules of public transportation. Trains and buses were very daylight heavy, and even the overnight buses tended to arrive at their destinations after the sun had come up. Much of Sho’s efforts went into securing transport, whether it was chartering a private plane with one of the more vampire-friendly airlines or arranging for a special train to run. From the sound of things, it wasn’t cheap. Traveling overseas got into nightmare territory, with vampires having to travel in the cargo section in special travel units because most major carriers wouldn’t risk a panic if a vampire was sitting up in coach with the rest of the humans, even if the flight left in the evening.

Sho and Jun’s trip to Fukuoka involved a chartered plane out of Haneda and then staying in a capsule hotel operated by a vampire. Trusting a human hotel to cater to vampire needs was almost always out of the question. They simply couldn’t wrap their heads around how deadly the sun was for them, and nobody wanted to risk a maid coming in and opening the curtains.

But you’d never know how nervewracking a tour was because Sho came down in the elevator looking incredibly happy. And incredibly nerdy at the same time. He was in full-on tour guide gear, wearing a long-sleeved red shirt under a khaki vest emblazoned with ‘Starlight Kiss Tours’ on the breast pocket, a bucket hat, and a dorky backpack, a bright red guide flag sticking out of the top. Jun was behind him, dressed more normally in a red Starlight Kiss ‘Staff’ t-shirt and jeans, tugging along a rolling suitcase. They had called for a taxi, the pair of them lingering in the Amagasa lobby waiting for it. Nino locked up the mail room for the night, joining them. Sho was on the phone, calling up the guests for his tour and cheerfully making sure they were all en route to the airport. That left Nino to peer around Jun’s arm, taking a look at the paperwork in his hand.

“You’re nosy,” Jun huffed, elbowing him aside lightly and flipping the pages over. It was an itinerary, so detailed that Nino noticed things had been planned down to the minute. Arrive Fukuoka, meet with pre-arranged taxi service, arrive hotel, Fukuoka dining tour, pre-arranged driving tour. 

“Seems like a lot to get done tonight.”

“You’re telling me,” Jun complained quietly. He pointed at Sho, who had his back turned as he babbled on his phone. “It’s all him. He says it’s so people get their money’s worth. Heaven forbid someone’s running a few minutes late or they want to take a few extra seconds to snap more photos.”

Nino grinned. “Tough boss?”

“The worst boss,” Jun replied, snickering. “I would never take a vacation with him willingly.”

Sho hung up the phone, turning around and eyeing them suspiciously. “What are you two laughing about?”

“Human jokes. You wouldn’t understand,” Jun said with a straight face, and Sho just rolled his eyes. 

Jun’s phone went off with a text message. “Taxi’s here.”

They said their farewells, Sho almost bouncing in his excitement as he carried his duffel bag outside. Jun turned before heading out the door to wave goodbye, offering Nino a surprisingly friendly smile as he followed Sho out. Nino couldn’t help waving back, feeling his heart sink as soon as the door closed, taking them away.

The next day saw another inspection from Agent Yoshitaka, and this time when they entered 6B, Nino decided that a quick peek would be okay this time, if only because he knew Jun and Sho weren’t home. Even though the occupants were gone, the Bureau of Undead Management apparently needed visual confirmation that they were telling the truth. Yoshitaka headed in and Nino was at her heels, trying to act nonchalant. Since Jun and Sho were obviously not in the bedroom, Yoshitaka went the extra step of checking the closets and the bathroom, ensuring they hadn’t smuggled anyone inside.

While Yoshitaka was needlessly checking the bathtub and under the sink for rogue vampires, Nino took the opportunity to take a quick glance into the bedroom. He felt his heart start to race as he peeked his head in, discovering not a high-tech vampire sleep unit but a king-sized bed, made up neatly with a dark blue comforter. Unless one of them slept on the couch, it was pretty clear that they shared the bedroom.

“Find something in here?” came Yoshitaka’s warm breath along the back of his neck, and he jumped, nearly elbowing her in the face.

“Ahhh, you surprised me,” he muttered, hand to his heart. “No, I…I thought they’d left a sock on the floor.”

She looked at him strangely. “A sock?”

“No sock. Just…” He let his voice trail off, since Yoshitaka had already lost interest and was heading for the genkan again, marking Jun and Sho’s absence on her tablet.

As they continued the inspections, as Nino wrapped up the afternoon in the mail room, as he found himself invited out for drinks at some vampire bar with Ohno and Maruyama, Nino remained preoccupied with 6B, its tenants hundreds of miles away on their overly scheduled tour. For days now he’d been replaying that strange dinner they’d shared, how he’d looked into Sakurai Sho’s eyes and seen him in a moment of utter, heartbreaking honesty. _Please continue to keep Jun in your favor._

Nino discovered that vampire bars were not all the same. They’d passed a few rowdy ones before settling in to one at the end of a small street in the neighborhood around Kamata Station. Ohno had deliberately sat between Maru and Nino, as if he all but expected Maru to embarrass himself. The younger vampire had not been able to sit still, hollering across the bar at some friend of his, asking Ohno every five minutes if he needed another drink, making weird jokes, looking like he was going to explode if he and Nino made eye contact.

Besides that strangeness, the bar was rather laid-back. It suited a quiet, calm person like Ohno well. Humans were allowed to enter, but few did. Only a handful of human beers were on tap; most of the other drinks were the blood-infused kind or even creepier, a strange cocktail of alcohol and blood that poured directly from an elaborate tap at the bar.

“It’s just animal blood, you know,” Ohno informed him, showing him the glass of tequila he was nursing that had been mixed with blood from the tap. “The bottled stuff, that’s usually cow or pig. On tap it’s chicken most of the time. Sweeter. It’s that movement the foodie people are into, what is it, not wasting anything…top to bottom?”

“Nose to tail,” Maru said, still fidgeting in his seat. “It’s nose to tail, Oh-chan.”

“Whatever,” Ohno said, nodding. “So you humans eat all that stuff, and the blood’s set aside for us. It’s not…well, it’s not human blood, but it’s not the end of the world. It makes the cravings go away. Keeps us from nibbling on the first person who walks by. It’s very civilized, huh?”

“So it’s like being on a diet? And drinking from a human is like splurging on cake?” Nino asked.

Maru glanced at him briefly before quickly looking away. Great, Nino thought. Now Maru was probably picturing Nino with a strawberry on top.

“I guess that’s pretty accurate,” Ohno decided. “Cheaper than going to a blood bank, too. Things really have changed.”

Ohno volunteered information about himself in little slivers and pieces. It was actually Maru who filled in most of the blanks about his sire, who was more interested in getting drunk than making conversation. Ohno had been a vampire for over a century now, had lived in a small fishing village and had moved to Tokyo sometime after the war. Most of the rural-dwelling vampires had been forcibly moved to enclaves in the cities by then, and Ohno had at least wanted a choice in his destination.

A little more than a year earlier, Maru had been on a nighttime boat tour that had gone out from the same pier as Ohno’s fishing boat. While leaning over the rail trying to take a picture (Ohno: “You were so stupid!”), Maru had fallen into the water. Seeing as how it had been winter at the time, he’d very quickly gotten hypothermia. On the brink of death and knowing that Ohno’s boat wouldn’t get him to a hospital in time, Ohno had offered Maruyama the gift of eternal life. 

They headed back sometime after midnight, Ohno telling Maru to go upstairs without him. Ohno stayed outside with Nino, having a cigarette. Like Sho craved the smell of food and even ate it despite the troubles it gave him, Ohno had been unable to give up smoking. “I should never have done it,” Ohno admitted.

“Maru seems…happy though?”

“I’m the only family he has now. He was dying, it wasn’t like he was making a rational decision, letting me turn him.”

As far as Nino knew, there were fewer and fewer vampires being turned these days. With all the government restrictions in place, they had very little freedom. What was preferable? Dying normally or living forever with most of your hours spent inside the walls of an enclave? Maru would have died young, though. Way too young. Ohno had probably thought the same, at the time.

Nino patted Ohno on the shoulder reverently. “You’re a good dad, Ohno-san.”

Ohno laughed, shaking his head. “Piss off.”

“What, you gonna bite me for teasing you, old man?”

Ohno patted him on the head. “Cocky.”

“I bet I taste great,” he said, pestering him further, jostling his shoulder. He wasn’t as cold as Nino had expected, their arms brushing. “Or do you not want to make Maru jealous?”

“You shouldn’t joke like that,” Ohno told him, his voice insistent. He stomped out his cigarette with his shoe. “Seriously.”

“I’ve never wanted to, you know,” Nino admitted, leaning back against the enclave wall. “Get bitten, I mean. I’ve never been to a blood bank, never saw the appeal.”

Ohno said nothing, leaning against the wall beside him. Nino knew Ohno wouldn’t do a thing to him, not ever. A few moments passed, a few of the building’s residents entering and exiting for the night. They acknowledged Nino and Ohno with nods, with quiet ‘good evening’s.

“But that’s…maybe that’s changing,” he said quietly, his head muddled from the pints of beer he’d managed to guzzle down at the vamp bar. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, forget that. Nix that one. Erase that one.”

Ohno let him babble on anyway.

“It’s supposed to feel good, isn’t it? Well, I guess you wouldn’t know, would you? You’re on the taking end, not the giving end. I don’t know if it’s because I work here now or what, but I just…I don’t know. I’m curious, I guess? And I’m not…I’m not asking you to do it. I’m sure Maru wants to, but I don’t think…I wouldn’t…”

“You like Sho-kun,” Ohno said bluntly. “You want Sho-kun to bite you.”

“Huh?”

Ohno rolled his eyes. “You talk about him a lot, Sho-kun.”

Did he? It wasn’t like he and Ohno hung out together often, but he had been chatting about the Fukuoka trip at the bar, about Sho’s tour guide outfit, about having dinner with him and Jun. “I…I don’t think so. Besides, he’s already spoken for…right?”

He was fishing for information, drunk and mumbling as he was, and Ohno stared at him for a little while, not taking the bait.

“He has Jun-kun,” Nino plowed on, full-on embarrassing himself now. But at least Ohno, unlike his other confidant Aiba Masaki, was probably not going to tell anyone else. “He has Jun-kun so I can’t…I couldn’t expect that…”

“You could ask him. If you trust him, and you’re dead set on the experience.”

He sighed, shutting his eyes. “How the hell would I do that? I work for him. Hell, I work for all of you. I’m fairly certain Joshima-san wouldn’t like it, and I’m not in the mood to get fired.”

Ohno shrugged. “Try a blood bank then. Get it out of your system.”

“Maybe.” 

Maybe it _would_ get it out of his system. His current infatuation with a vampire (and said vampire’s special someone) was starting to take up more head space than he liked. He ate, slept, and worked and when he wasn’t doing those three things he was probably obsessing over the residents of 6B. So maybe if he just went out and got himself bitten, he’d hate it and the thought of anyone else doing that to him, Sho-kun included, would not crop up again. He needed a cure for his vampire problem. And a cure for his Jun problem. Fast.

—

His phone buzzed a week later with an incoming email. Aiba was at the door paying the delivery guy for the pizza he’d ordered for them, and Nino sighed. He was just about to eat dinner and it was probably one of the usual suspects, all set to pester him.

In the last few days he’d gotten 47 emails from Yokoyama regarding a package he’d ordered from somewhere in Germany. Most of those 47 emails had just consisted of the words “is it here yet?” And in addition to those, Kokubun Taichi was organizing some event for the enclave, a “dinner” party that would most likely be held on the rooftop if the weather worked out. So Taichi had Nino running ragged, contacting party caterers all around Tokyo that specialized in vampire events while simultaneously running everything by Yoshitaka, since a gathering of the entire enclave, even on their own roof, could pose a disturbance in the neighborhood if they were noisy or had music playing. Nino had gone to the neighborhood shrine every morning before work simply to pray for rain.

Luckily (or unluckily), it wasn’t Yoko or Taichi. It was Matsumoto Jun, and the email had been marked ‘URGENT.’

_We’re at the office, and there’s been some vandalism. Windows broken. Need to hire a repairman ASAP. Jun._

Nino looked up, seeing that Aiba had just shut the door and was lifting the lid on the pizza box, making a blissful expression that Nino immediately envied. He looked back down at his phone, frowning. Since Jun and Sho had returned from Fukuoka, Nino thought he’d done a good job avoiding them. He’d quit reading the Starlight Kiss website cold turkey, even if he got a kick out of Sho’s extremely boring blog posts about twilight camel rides in Mongolia or the charms of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia under a full moon.

Aiba went without a plate, walking in with a big cheesy slice and a smile. “Get it while it’s hot.”

He sighed, showing Aiba his phone. “Duty calls.”

“Nobody’s coming to fix a window this late,” Aiba pointed out, before hissing about tomato sauce burning the roof of his mouth. “Ahhh, hot!”

“I know,” Nino admitted. “I still have to help.”

Aiba seemed a little puzzled. Nino didn’t exactly jump enthusiastically into action for any other residents. “Well, at least take some pizza to go?”

Twenty minutes later he was carrying a grocery bag onto the train, holding a Tupperware full of pizza, several garbage bags, and duck tape. The Starlight Kiss Tours office was on the third floor of a brown brick office building, down a narrow, pedestrian-only street a few blocks south of Gotanda Station. It was worse than Nino had imagined, finding Jun in the street sweeping broken glass into a thick canvas bag. Nino looked up, seeing that multiple windows had been completely shattered. 

“The hell happened?” he asked, and Jun looked up from his sweeping. Under the street light, his strong features were reading less handsome than usual on account of how pissed off he looked.

“We got here and the woman who owns the bakery had already started cleaning it.” Jun gestured to the ground floor of the building, where a nervous looking woman was looking out at them, frowning. “She said it happened fast, that someone must have thrown stuff from the building across the way. Happened around 6:00 PM. Thankfully nobody was hurt.”

Nino looked up to the building opposite. It was four stories, and since the street was so narrow, someone could easily have flung something through the glass across the way. It had definitely been a targeted attack. Only the third floor’s windows had been broken.

“I brought bags to tape up, to cover everything at least until the morning. I called Yasuda-san, he’s a contractor in Shinagawa. He’s done work for Amagasa before, he’ll be here first thing tomorrow with a crew. I forwarded information about your building to him already, so he’s probably going to send a tentative invoice through before he goes to bed tonight.”

Jun nodded, finishing up his sweeping as people walked around them, doing their Japanese best and ignoring what had happened only a few feet away. Jun returned the broom to the woman at the bakery, thanking her, and brought the bag of glass to a garbage dumpster. Nino then followed him inside, where they found Sho cleaning up the glass that had landed in the office. He also saw the culprits, a small stack of heavy red bricks that Sho had moved aside. Nino decided not to comment yet on the words ‘DIE VAMPIRE’ that had been scrawled onto the bricks. He figured that Jun was already angry enough about it.

The office was small, two desks pushed together with computers on each. One wall was lined with shelves, teeming with books about various travel destinations. There was a couch, presumably for people who visited to do a travel booking in person to sit, while the other walls had posters from all over. New Zealand. Los Angeles. Paris. Nairobi. Sho looked up from where he was sweeping glass with a small broom, smiling. “You didn’t have to come all the way over here.”

“It’s fine,” Nino said, holding up his grocery bag. “I’ve got garbage bags. You can tape them up.” He told Sho about Yasuda, about what it would probably cost to get everything fixed. He saw Sho’s expression darken a bit at the price, but otherwise he seemed grateful.

“You’ve been a big help,” Sho told him, patting Nino on the shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d be able to get someone here so fast.”

“It’s his job, you know,” Jun reminded Sho, stepping gingerly around a pile of shards Sho hadn’t gotten to yet. “We should hurry and get this covered up. We don’t need any bugs getting in.”

Once they cleared the glass from the floor, Nino ate his pizza while he watched the Matsumoto Jun and Sakurai Sho Silent Teamwork Olympics. Barely speaking, they somehow managed to get the bags taped up with little argument, Sho standing on a chair and taping the bags at the top while Jun secured them at the bottom. They worked in tandem, with precision, only until they reached the last window.

Sho got a little of the duck tape stuck on his hand, and when he gave it a yank, it ended up pulling Jun’s hand along with the garbage bag where he’d been attempting to tape it at the bottom. The trash bag tore against some of the broken glass at the bottom, and Jun let out a yelp of surprise. Though he’d been quick enough to keep his hand from touching a jagged piece of glass, it had nicked his thumb.

He turned away quickly, but Nino, midway through a bite of pizza, saw the instantaneous change in Sho. The way his nostrils flared and his eyes widened at the first scent of Jun’s blood. Nino watched in awe as Sho made a fist, clenching his jaw before climbing down off the chair. Doing everything in his power to keep himself under control. He put a hand to Jun’s shoulder.

“Are you alright? I’m so sorry. I should have just taken that broken piece off the window frame…”

Jun waved him off. “It’s not deep, it’s fine…”

“Let me see it.” Sho turned. “Nino? There’s a bathroom we share with the law office upstairs, can you go see if there’s a first aid kit or some bandages up there?”

He set his pizza down and got to his feet. Jun was still waving Sho off, telling him he was fine. Nino found the bathroom up a flight of stairs, unlocked. It was just a toilet and sink, with an air freshener aerosol spray and a stack of hand towels on the sink. He wet some of the towels and grabbed a few dry ones. Moving back down the stairs, he paused when he reached the door of Starlight Kiss.

Inside he saw something he was clearly not going to forget any time soon. Jun was perched on one of the desks, with Sho standing in front of him. Sho’s hand was locked around Jun’s wrist, and they seemed to be having a staring contest. Jun’s cut thumb was bleeding, and even from the doorway Nino thought there was more blood than there ought to have been. Without a word passing between them, he watched in surprise as Jun used the fingers of his uninjured hand to squeeze his wounded thumb, as though he was trying to make it bleed even more.

Sho’s eyes, now zeroed in entirely on Jun’s wounded thumb, were almost pitch black. Nino watched him, his entire body rigid, like a mouse trap about to spring. His grip on Jun’s wrist seemed tight, but Jun didn’t seem to be in any pain. If Nino had to venture an opinion, he’d argue that Jun was entirely in control of what was happening. Holding a vampire totally in his sway. His bloody fingers squeezed his thumb one more time, and Nino thought he heard Sho moan quietly.

Jun said only “okay, now come here” and then Sho was moving. His tongue darted from between his lips, licking from the base of Jun’s thumb to the end of it. Jun shut his eyes as soon as Sho closed his plump lips around his bloody thumb and started to suck on it. Water from the wet paper towel was dripping down Nino’s wrist, droplets hitting his shoe, but he couldn’t look away, watching Sho slowly suck on Jun’s thumb before reaching for his other hand, taking Jun’s fingers into his mouth and cleaning the blood from them. 

Nino could scarcely breathe, wondering if they’d somehow managed to forget him entirely in the last two or three minutes. He didn’t know what he liked more - seeing how slowly, how tenderly Sho’s mouth moved against Jun’s digits or how Jun’s mouth dropped open, his eyes shut tight at the mere sensation of Sho tasting, licking up his blood.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be watching this. But his body wasn’t working. It was like he was stuck in molasses, wanting to turn away and pretend to be walking back with heavy, clomping steps. When Sho finally backed away, pink saliva at the corner of his mouth, he looked over, straight at Nino, and he knew he’d been caught.

If Sho was embarrassed, though, he didn’t look it. In fact, there was none of the silly, vest-wearing, blog-writing tour guide standing there. He saw lust in Sho’s face, barely under control. Nino was glad he was wearing a bulkier pair of shorts, if only because he’d been half hard from the moment Jun had squeezed his own injured thumb.

Nino watched Sho lick at the corner of his lips, blinking a few times to seemingly try to regain himself. “Anything upstairs?” Sho asked, his voice husky and deep.

“No,” Nino replied, and finally Jun seemed to realize they weren’t alone, his pretty eyes opening. He was breathing hard, but he merely hopped off the desk and walked over.

He met Nino’s eyes, and where he expected to be chastized for clearly having watched an intimate moment, he only offered Nino a tiny smile. “Thanks,” Jun said, taking the towels from Nino’s hand, dabbing one of the wet ones along his thumb.

“I better get back and print that invoice for you,” Nino somehow managed to say. “I’ll…I’ll put it in your mailbox, and then if you want to leave a check or pay in cash, I’ll…come back here and bring it to Yasuda-san and his crew in the morning.”

Jun said nothing, patting the wet towel against his thumb. Sho gestured limply to the other desk. “Your pizza?”

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” he replied, much as that made little sense. He turned around, half-stumbling down the stairs and out the door. 

He was almost in a fog on the train ride back, nearly missing his stop. He somehow got his keys into his hand, opening up his apartment door. He barely had the door shut and locked behind him before he was tugging his pants down, taking himself in his hand right there in the genkan. He thought of Jun, his eyes closed, Sho’s mouth wrapped possessively around his thumb. It took less than a minute before he was groaning, fumbling for one of the paper towels Jun hadn’t taken. 

When he opened his apartment door just before sunrise the following morning, he found the empty Tupperware that had contained his pizza. It had been washed, and there was a note on top.

_I ate the rest of it. Order mushrooms next time. Jun._


	4. Chapter 4

When three magazines arrived in one day with ‘DIE VAMPIRE’ scrawled across the covers, Nino got Agent Yoshitaka on the phone. Kazama-kun had been extremely apologetic, saying that he’d intended to put them in an envelope for defaced mail, but he thought it best to bring them to Amagasa as is so something could be done about it.

None of the three magazines was addressed to Sho. And much as that brought the slightest relief to Nino’s heart, he could still imagine those bricks on the floor of Starlight Kiss Tours. Sho hadn’t filed a complaint about it, but now Nino supposed he had little choice but to report it.

Yoshitaka, strange on most days, was entirely professional upon arrival. She took photographs of each magazine first before slipping them all in her bag. They were to be taken to Bureau headquarters in hopes of running the handwriting on each magazine against their database of catalogued threats. But if they had no matches, then the person threatening the Amagasa residents was still out there, undiscovered. He told Yoshitaka about the magazine incident with Sho, about the broken windows at Starlight Kiss. 

She took a copy of the invoice from Yasuda’s firm, scanning it quickly. “You said they wrote on the bricks that were thrown through the windows?”

“Yeah. Same message.”

“Still have the bricks?”

Nino shrugged. “They probably threw them out.”

Yoshitaka looked annoyed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Perhaps she cared about the vampires she tracked more than she let on. “Well, we can try and get Sakurai-san a refund or some sort of tax break for the broken windows. If we had the bricks, he’d be guaranteed compensation since it would be irrefutable that it’s anti-vampire harassment. But with just a few broken windows, it can be written off as simple vandalism. I can’t promise anything.”

“He’s not in the habit of reporting things like this anyway,” Nino admitted.

“Most of them aren’t,” Yoshitaka replied.

Aiba was looking through the magazines, shaking his head. “They’re not hurting anyone, the vampires. Why would they do this?”

“No matter how closely we watch them, how much we make them follow our rules, they’re still stronger than we are,” Yoshitaka pointed out. “Some people don’t like that.”

The trouble with the magazines and the vandalism at Sho’s business was enough to get Joshima to cancel Taichi’s party. The money Taichi had collected so far for the caterers and entertainment was instead being channeled into upgrading security for the building. Over the next several days, Joshima had contractors coming in and out before settling on a company that would install more high-tech cameras on premises. Aiba was excited for the new technology, the motion sensors installed in the garage, and the pending upgrade for the elevators. If a criminal got past the front door and got past Aiba (and Nino), he’d still hit a wall upon reaching the elevators. They were getting a passcode, known to residents only. It would have to be keyed in before any of the elevator doors would open.

Nino and Agent Yoshitaka started to do rounds of the neighborhood during the day, familiarizing themselves with the people who worked in the local businesses, asking if they’d keep a watchful eye out for anyone suspicious near Amagasa. Unfamiliar cars parked on the block, people walking by multiple times, anything out of the ordinary. Nino wasn’t sure any of them would go out of their way to help, but it couldn’t hurt to ask them to simply look.

The residents seemed more irritated than threatened. With all the contracting work, there were strangers in and out of the building for several days during daylight hours, and Nino felt bad for those who were trying to rest but didn’t have one of the soundproof vamp sleep units. That included Jun and Sho, who Nino hadn’t spoken to at all since the night at Starlight Kiss. One night he’d still been working in the office, with the shutter down and locked, and the Sakurai-Matsumoto mailbox had opened and closed. He’d listened to them talking about some vampire-friendly luau in Honolulu before heading out the door. It was cowardly, sure, but Nino supposed it was for the best.

The following evening he conveniently packed up the mail room just before sunset, ducking out before Aiba and going home. It was a Friday evening following a long day of listening to awful drilling noises as a crew of electricians from Yasuda’s company worked on wiring up the elevators. Nino’s head was pounding, and he was ready for bed almost as soon as he got inside, sprawling out on his loveseat because he doubted he’d make it to his bedroom.

The buzzer for his door went off a short time later. “Go home, Masaki. I’m tired!”

The buzzer went off a second time. Nino rolled off the loveseat with little grace, thumping onto the floor with a low growl. He dragged himself to the door and looked out the peep hole to see Sakurai Sho standing there in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. It amazed Nino how Sho could go out in the summer heat in suits or jackets all the time. Maybe vampire body temperatures were different.

He undid the locks, pulling the door open slightly. “I was sleeping,” he lied. 

Sho was unapologetic. “Can we talk?” He looked rather exhausted, which made sense with all the noise that had been buzzing through Amagasa of late. A vampire without sleep was kind of scary. 

Nino couldn’t help but poke his head out into the hall, confused. “Where’s Jun-kun?”

“Watching a movie in the apartment,” Sho said before asking once again, with emphasis. “Nino, can I come in? I want to talk to you.”

“Giving him an awful lot of freedom, leaving him alone,” Nino pointed out, going for a teasing tone. Traditionally, blood contracts were never supposed to be left by themselves. They were either with their vampire or being escorted by a trusted proxy, which was why Nino always had to accompany Erika or any of the other Amagasa BCs when they went out during daylight hours.

“I think I can trust him not to run away,” he said as Nino took a step back, letting Sho inside.

“I don’t have anything for you. To drink I mean,” Nino said sheepishly, and Sho waved a hand, not worried about Nino’s hospitality or lack thereof.

Sho sat at one end of Nino’s loveseat, and try as he might, there wasn’t much space between them. It had been days now, but having Sho so close, Nino caught himself staring at his lips, remembering how gently he’d taken Jun’s fingers into his mouth and…

“Nino.”

“Yeah?” He blinked, wishing he could be a more respectful host, but between his long, noisy day and all the time he’d spent trying not to think about Sho as more than a regular old Amagasa resident, it was just not happening. But try as he did to fight it, it was all too easy to sit with Sho, to relax around him. 

Sho sat with his back against the cushion, hands shoved into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He looked a little lost. “Matsumoto-kun’s contract ends in two months.” Last names again. Maybe on purpose, in hopes that Nino would forget what he’d seen that night at Starlight Kiss.

Two months. Five years together, and it was almost up. Nino hadn’t even realized it was so soon. “How does that renewal stuff work? With the contracts, I mean. Is that something I can help with? Do you need me to speak with Agent Yoshitaka about it?”

Sho’s eyes were serious. “I was hoping you could spend some time with Matsumoto-kun, Nino. Not just as the daylight specialist, accompanying him around because it’s your job. But as a friend.”

Nino was confused. “This isn’t about the contract?”

“It _is_ about the contract. Sort of,” Sho said quietly. “I was hoping…I was just, well…”

“Well?” Nino sat sideways, pulling his socked feet up onto the loveseat. He nudged Sho with his toe. “Well what, Sho-san?”

“Because of all the restrictions in a blood contract, Matsumoto-kun has spent the last few years living on my schedule. He misses out on a lot, being tied to me that way. He doesn’t complain, not that much. Not as much as he could. But anyway,” Sho said, exhaustion written across his face. “I want him to get out more. To remember what it’s like to be human, to go out in the sunshine and just live a normal life.”

Nino could scarcely breathe. Jun probably had no idea Sho had come to his apartment. If Jun knew what Sho was asking, he’d be angry. “Sho-san, you don’t _want_ him to renew his contract, do you?”

Sho was staring at his lap. “Yes. And no.” Nino watched him rub at his eyes, run his hands through his hair, let out an annoyed sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want him to do.”

“You think if he hangs out with me, he’ll change his mind? Well I hate to break it to you, but I’m not the ‘going out and having fun’ type. I’m the ‘let’s stay in and not spend money needlessly’ type.”

Sho smiled gently at that, still looking down. “I’ve already taken five years from him. It was around his birthday when we met. He’d just turned 27. Those are prime years, important years. And I let him sign his life away to live with me. He has to be around me almost every waking moment. At home, at work, even on the road when we’re leading a tour. Sometimes even I get sick of seeing him, so I know he has to be tired of me.”

With the way Jun had reacted when the threats against Sho had come in, Nino kind of doubted that Jun wanted a life without Sho in it. “Jun worries about you,” Nino said. “And you’re trying to push him away?”

“It’s not like that. I love…” Nino inhaled sharply at that, without meaning to. Sho noticed. “I love having him around. But I don’t want him to do anything he’ll regret. I want him to be happy.”

This was deep stuff, heavy relationship stuff. We share a king-size bed stuff. Why was Sho trusting Nino with this sort of thing? Sho turned, and Nino saw the heavy burden Sho seemed to be carrying. He remembered that first awkward dinner he’d shared with them, how Sho had asked him to look out for Jun.

“After Misako-san died, he changed,” Sho admitted, and his voice was so low, so quiet, that Nino had to wriggle a bit to sit closer. “Or maybe he’d been thinking this way for a long time and I refused to pay attention to it.”

“You can tell me,” Nino said, trying to encourage him. Sho was putting up a tough front, blinking as though he was trying not to cry.

“He asked me to…” Sho closed his eyes, choking up. “Nino, this was a little while before you came here, but he asked me to turn him. I don’t know if it was Misako-san’s death or the realization that his contract’s almost done, but he asked me to do that to him.”

Nino was stunned, could barely keep the conversation going. “He wants to be a vampire.”

“I told him no. I’ve told him no again and again, that I cannot and will not do that to him,” Sho explained. “We share close quarters, and for the last few years we’ve been…well. In regards to that, at least, it’s made things awkward lately.”

No kidding, Nino wanted to say, as Sho all but confirmed that he and Jun were far more than a signed contract. It certainly went a long way to explaining why Sho and Jun behaved so strangely around one another. Jun had, in no uncertain terms, asked Sho to kill him, to bring him back as something inhuman. He’d look human, he’d sound human, the same as Sho sitting before him now. But he’d always be different. He’d always need blood to survive. Sho had turned him down. Nino imagined that would put a strain on any relationship, especially one as close as theirs.

He remembered Ohno, how he’d turned Maru only to keep him from dying needlessly, from freezing to death after his fall into Tokyo Bay. Ohno despaired about it to this day, worrying he’d made the wrong choice. That Maru hadn’t known just what he was agreeing to. Jun was different, obviously, having spent the last few years in the enclave. Jun knew first hand what a vampire’s life was, the restrictions and the difficulties.

And now Nino knew what Sho wanted from him. Sho wanted Jun to change his mind, to never ask such a thing of him again. Sho wanted Jun to remain human and was hoping Nino would be the one to convince Jun it was the right choice.

“I’ll try,” Nino decided, doubting he was going to be of much use. “All I can do is try.”

Matsumoto Jun had proven himself a stubborn person, someone who knew what he wanted and didn’t give in to expectations. He’d quit his job to make money at blood banks. He willingly signed a blood contract, trading day for night and probably losing friends along the way. And when Sho was threatened, Jun wanted him to fight back. If Jun was so set on becoming a vampire, whatever his reasons for wanting it, how far would he go?

A while later, Nino walked Sho to the door. Sho stood in the doorway, looking like a weight had lifted. Was Nino the only confidant he had? “I want him to grow old,” Sho admitted. “You can’t imagine how badly I want that.”

“I probably can’t,” he said quietly. “Good night, Sho-san.”

He gave Nino a quick nod. “Good night.”

—

A few days later, Jun sent him an email. Something about shopping for clothes for a pending Hawaiian trip, the next destination for Starlight Kiss Tours. Nino supposed it had been Sho’s idea. 

Jun met him in the lobby on a Wednesday morning, and it was almost startling to see him in broad daylight. He was in a gray t-shirt that Nino liked very much, if only because it was tight and showed off the broad span of his shoulders, the pale muscle of his arms. He apparently wore contacts on most days, but hadn’t put in the effort this morning since he was squinting at the sunlight through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made him look a touch pretentious, crossing his arms a bit huffily as he waited for Nino to lock up the mail room. He hadn’t styled his hair either, shoving it all under a New York Yankees baseball cap.

“Been a while since I’ve been up this early,” Jun admitted, looking like he wanted to crawl back in bed and never come out.

“Poor baby,” Nino replied, having already been briefed by Jun-expert Sakurai Sho about Jun’s tendency to be ‘temperamental’ upon going out during the day. He wasn’t going to let Jun bitch at him all day unless he got to bitch back.

According to Sho, Jun had always been a night owl, even before the contract. He was the kind of person who’d go out after dark and stay out drinking until the sun came up. Adjusting to a vampire’s schedule hadn’t been much of a hardship for him. With Aiba bidding them farewell, Nino and Jun took the elevator down to the parking garage. While Jun sipped what smelled like the world’s strongest coffee from a travel mug, Nino pulled the Toyota out of the garage and out into the daylight.

Nino had always been a homebody, shunning the outside, but even he had to admit that Matsumoto Jun was pale. He was tempted to put his arm next to Jun’s, to marvel at how much darker he was simply from going out to run normal errands for the enclave every day. As Nino drove, he snuck quick peeks at his passenger, hiding a smile at the way Jun shrank back in his seat, putting down the sun visor and whining about having left his prescription sunglasses back at the enclave. Nino wasn’t free from Jun’s complaints and chatter until they ended up at the outlet mall in Kisarazu.

It had been a long drive, Jun using the freedom of not having to drive and being up during normal human hours to make personal phone calls. He didn’t seem to care if Nino was listening in as he called, in order, his mother, his grandmother, a friend named Shun, and then his sister, leaving a lengthy voicemail for her as she wasn’t at home.

For someone under contract to a vampire, Jun’s phone calls were surprisingly mundane. He talked about work as though he was a normal salaryman, discussing the upcoming tour to Oahu in a week’s time. He told his grandmother that he’d take pictures of Diamond Head for her. He told the friend that he’d bring souvenirs back for his child. He must have spent fifteen minutes listening to his mother complain about a neighbor who was slacking off with sorting her recyclables. He signed off with his mother by calmly telling her that “Sho-san says hello,” which made Nino nearly steer the car into another lane.

Nino had not really used the word ‘cute’ thus far as a descriptor for Matsumoto Jun, but today it seemed warranted. As Nino trailed him from store to store, Jun’s grumpiness started to slip away and he became a different person. A cheerful person. Someone with a smile so bright and beautiful it could probably end wars and human suffering. Retail therapy worked wonders on someone like Jun, it seemed. He patiently asked Nino’s opinion about clothes, about swim trunks, about sandals. He then proceeded to dismiss Nino’s suggestions outright, buying whatever he wanted instead. 

“I just buy what feels right,” Jun explained, which made no sense to someone like Nino, who much preferred to take a glance at the price tag first before picking anything off the rack. And yet it was still more cute than obnoxious, watching Jun tote bags around, hold a shirt or a pair of slacks against himself to guess at the fit, agonize over a purchase he was making for Sho.

“He’s got too many of these ugly hats,” Jun complained in one store. “He’s never out in the sun, he doesn’t need any more god damn hats.”

“Hear, hear,” Nino said in support, remembering the hat Sho had been wearing before their trip to Fukuoka.

In two hours, Nino had gotten more exercise walking from store to store than he’d gotten in weeks. He’d managed to influence only one of Jun’s purchases, selecting a new red tie for Sho that would most assuredly look perfect on him. 

And in two hours, Matsumoto Jun had taken out his credit card fourteen times and carried around bags from at least a dozen stores. New jeans, items for Sho, accessories for himself. Some of it, Nino wanted to point out, would probably not be going to Hawaii with him, but he got the feeling Jun really enjoyed going out in daylight hours for once, getting to try things on and touch fabric in person. Back at the enclave, Nino was regularly signing for Jun’s online orders. Shopping in person instead of from the other side of a glowing screen had Jun so happy he was even cracking jokes, offering to help Nino pick out some new things.

“I’m fine with my current wardrobe, thank you,” Nino declined, not wanting to spend another two hours of his life at the outlet mall.

They somehow managed to fit all of Jun’s bags in the car, heading back. Nino had never been out this long on “enclave business” before, but he wasn’t complaining. He’d gotten to see an entirely different side of one of the people he’d been hopelessly pining for all these weeks. It helped fill in the blanks, create a more whole Matsumoto Jun than the bits and pieces he’d gleaned from setting the man’s mail in his box or trying food he’d made. He was irritatingly particular about anything and everything, but he was kind and sweet at the same time. Nino caught him smiling a few times as he picked things out to buy for Sho.

They were going to stop for lunch upon getting back, and as the car crawled along in bumper to bumper traffic, Jun reclined the front seat the slightest bit, crossing his arms. Nap time. Nino let his eyes dart from the road before him to Jun at his side, reveling in all the crazy contradictions wrapped up in one person. 

Handsome and proud, but with puncture wounds on his neck he wasn’t too vain to hide with bandaging or make-up. Living with a vampire under a contract that had probably distanced him from friends and family, but promising his grandmother that he’d send her his ‘vacation’ photos. Delighting simply in a day out, mingling among humans, but having asked Sho to turn him into a vampire and keep him from a day like today ever again.

After Nino stopped back at the enclave to check in with Aiba and make sure there’d been no emergencies, he and Jun headed for a small Italian bistro in the neighborhood for lunch. While Jun expertly twirled pasta around his fork and Nino did so with far less finesse, he couldn’t help asking questions, wanting to know more about him.

He got answers to questions great and small. Maybe it was the daylight, but Jun seemed open and relaxed in a way he hadn’t been around Nino before. He liked the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but lately he’d entered a jazz phase. He had no shame admitting that he loved both romantic movies and shounen manga. The job he’d quit to sell his blood full time had been at a hotel, where he’d worked at the concierge desk because he liked to be helpful, but hated wearing a uniform and being treated like a servant. “Basically, I would hate having your job,” he admitted to Nino, which made him snort in a most ungentlemanly fashion. But his skills at arranging spa visits and dinner reservations for hotel guests made his transition to his new life as Sho’s travel agency employee go quite smoothly.

BCs lived with their vampires, were paid for their blood. Jun had negotiated things so that he’d be allowed to work for his pay, simply because he was the type of person who wanted to earn their keep. “I didn’t want to be just a bag of blood to him,” he said quietly, and Nino noticed a bittersweet grin flash across his face before disappearing again.

He’d grown up in Tokyo, in a normal family. No vampire relatives. He was the first to go to the “dark side,” he admitted with a chuckle, and while he and his father had a very tense relationship since Jun joined the enclave, his mother had been slowly softening the old man up. Jun was even hopeful his parents would come on one of Sho’s trips someday.

“It would take a lot of planning, but there’s nobody better at it than Sho-kun. Somehow, he’d find a way to make it happen.”

It was obvious that Jun cared for Sho a great deal. Not just as the person he relied on for employment and shelter, and not as the person he was in a relationship with, strained though it may have been. He had a solid respect for Sho as a person, full stop, for his work ethic and his personality. That didn’t stop him from teasing him, though.

“He’s really weird,” Jun told Nino, lowering his voice as though Sakurai Sho, a mile away and asleep, might overhear him. “He overschedules and he grinds his teeth when he’s asleep and he eats things that make him sick and he can barely dress himself. But still, there’s just…”

“…there’s just something about him,” Nino interrupted, earning a soft smile from Jun.

“I wonder sometimes, if he was just human,” Jun said, absent-mindedly pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “If I’d feel the same.”

Nino said nothing, letting Jun stare blankly at his glass of wine for a few moments. In a different world, would they have still found each other? Ended up together? Or was Jun as addicted to the idea of being with a vampire as Sho was addicted to his blood? Did Jun want to be a vampire so Sho wouldn’t rely on him in that way any longer? To make things more even between them? He wanted to ask Jun why, why he thought it was worth giving up a chance at a normal life.

He twisted some more pasta around his fork, thinking about everything Jun believed he could leave behind. “That girl on the fridge with you. There’s a picture of you and her. Who is she? Your sister?”

Jun seemed to snap out of his reverie, reaching for his wine glass and taking a healthy gulp. “You look that closely at our refrigerator?”

Nino smiled. “Whenever I come in with Yoshitaka, I take a peek at it. I’m sorry if that’s weird, but I don’t go in the bedrooms when we do the inspections. Gotta have something to look at.”

Jun nodded. “That picture was from before I met Sho-kun. Mao-chan…she and I…well, it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I prefer men. We were together for several years.”

“Sho-san doesn’t mind you keeping that? A picture of the ex? Not the jealous type?”

“No, he doesn’t mind if I keep it.” Jun met Nino’s eyes, face utterly serious. “She was attacked and murdered by a group of vampires.”

Nino’s eyes widened, his hand shakily putting down his fork. “Jun-kun…oh god. Oh my god I’m so sorry…”

But then Jun started to laugh, a mean-spirited cackle that left Nino confused. His heart was racing, still imagining the woman with the sweet smile on Sho and Jun’s refrigerator being murdered in a gruesome fashion. Jun was laughing so hard he had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, earning a few stares from other people in the restaurant.

“Oh you should see your face right now,” Jun managed to say in between gasps for air. His whole body was shaking, and he reached a hand out, giving Nino’s a squeeze. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Oh my god, she’s not dead, Nino.”

“What the fuck,” he mumbled, deciding to let Jun choose when to let go of him. Jun’s grasp was warm, strong, enveloping his own small hand so easily.

“I’m sorry,” Jun said, barely holding it together. “Mao-chan is absolutely, one hundred percent fine. We broke up amicably and I see her once a week, if not more. She can’t come to the enclave, but she comes to the office to see me.”

Nino glared at him. “You have a bizarre sense of humor.”

Jun gave his hand one more squeeze before letting go, snickering under his breath. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I just…you were listening to me so attentively, I couldn’t help myself.” He cleared his throat, wiping another tear from the corner of his eye. “Mao-chan is fine. Breaking up with her was the best thing I ever did for her, if only because it opened the door for her to realize she loved someone else. She married our friend, Toma-kun, we all grew up together and now she’s got him wrapped around her little finger.”

“Remind me never to listen to you so attentively again, Jun-kun.”

Jun’s laugh got Nino through the rest of the day, seeing how gradually he’d come to relax around Nino. As he bustled around the mail room, he kept thinking of the “new” Jun he’d met that day, the Jun who smiled and laughed and reached out to squeeze his hand.

When his alarm went off come morning, there was an all-too-formal email waiting for him from Sho, stating that he hadn’t seen “Matsumoto-kun” so happy in months, thanking him for taking him out for the day. The email he received from Jun, however, was much less stiff.

_We’re going to karaoke Saturday night. You better come. Jun._

—

Even though he’d gone back to his apartment for a quick power nap after work, the long hours in the mail room were catching up with Nino as he got into the backseat of Sho’s car on Saturday night. Jun was already plying him with energy shots, passing one back to him as Sho pulled the car out of the garage. He was already regretting having volunteered himself as designated driver.

They were off to a vampire-friendly karaoke place in Kabukicho, would be meeting with Jun’s ex Mao-chan and her husband Toma. Aiba had been invited but he and his girlfriend were already on a double date with Kazama-kun and his wife. It left Nino feeling like a fifth wheel as Sho parked and he followed him and Jun inside. But it didn’t take long for him to feel welcome among the strange circle of friends.

Mao practically flung herself into Jun’s arms upon their entry to the rented karaoke room, Jun lifting her around, turning them in a circle until she complained. “See,” Jun said, jerking away as Mao attempted to fight back with tickling fingers. “See Nino, she’s not dead.”

“What do you mean not dead?” Mao fumed, shoving him. “What are you telling people about me, you creep?”

Toma rolled his eyes, leaning close to whisper conspiratorially with Nino. “He’s kind of a dick, isn’t he?” he mumbled, although there was obvious affection in his voice.

Unlike most humans, Toma and Mao didn’t seem to treat Sho any differently, arguing with him about what songs to sing, asking about the pending Starlight Kiss Hawaii tour, and not showing any outward disgust when he ordered one of his blood-infused vampire specialty drinks. Nino got the sense that if Jun turned up vampire one day, Toma and Mao would not be too troubled about it. Maybe it was this acceptance that made him bold enough to want Sho to turn him. Nino wondered if Jun had asked his friends about it, if they’d support his decision. Not that it was going to change Sho’s mind.

Nino was introduced and not treated as an afterthought. The laid-back and chatty Toma wanted to know everything about his job, speaking noisily over Jun’s rather nasal Michael Jackson medley, to learn all the ins and outs of the enclave. Nino couldn’t tell them much, on account of what he’d promised Joshima-san, and he could see appreciation in Sho’s eyes for keeping his chatter mostly about Yokoyama’s weird complaints, about Jun’s _Cooking with Blood_ magazine. 

He kept downing energy drinks while the others slowly got drunk around him. Soon enough Jun was tugging him by the hand, sharing a microphone with him. His body was warm when he put his arm around his waist, and when Nino turned in a slight panic, he could only see acceptance, even encouragement in Sho’s eyes. The vampire was sipping one of his drinks, his eyes bright from the alcohol. Nino simply nodded, putting his arm around Jun’s back and joining him for a rather misguided, but enthusiastic attempt at a Golden Bomber song.

He and Jun did so many songs in a row their voices started to crack, but nobody complained. Toma and Mao were nearly asleep, eyes heavy as they limply hit tambourines or mumbled along. Sho was in and out of the room, buying more drinks until everyone except Nino was thoroughly liquored up. Toma, in a sleepy giddiness, did one final X Japan song with Sho before calling it a night, half-dragging and half-carrying his wife from the room, heading downstairs to catch a taxi.

Now it was just the three of them, Jun completely uninhibited by now and grabbing the half-empty beers that Mao and Toma had been struggling through and downing them in between shouting out lyrics. Sho was laughing at him, his shimmering, amused eyes meeting with Nino’s. “He’s going to be hugging the toilet tomorrow,” Sho said, hand squeezing Nino’s thigh.

He liked the attention, though his current state of sobriety kept him from touching Sho in return. He glanced at his phone, sighing, showing it to Sho. “I have to be at work in three hours.”

Sho leaned closer, and Nino was having a little trouble thinking clearly. Jun’s noisy singing, full of lyric misfires, combined with the dim lighting and glowing TV screens in the karaoke room, didn’t help. “Have you even had a day off since you’ve started? It’s summer, you’re putting in what, 13, 14 hour days every day?”

Nino shook his head. “It’s not that big a deal…” He usually got in at least an hour or so of a nap each day, when they weren’t expecting deliveries and he had Aiba to ding the bell and wake him.

“Then call in sick,” Sho said. “And I’m usually the last person who would advise such a thing…”

“Workaholic!” Jun shouted, his voice echoing from the microphone and bouncing around the room.

Nino shook his head, ignoring the voices of his intoxicated companions. They’d have to leave soon, if only so Nino was awake enough to drive them back to the enclave safely. “We should call it a night soon.”

Sho reached out a hand, his fingers gently teasing along his jawline. “Too responsible, Ninomiya-san.”

He shut his eyes as soon as he felt Sho’s cool fingers on his skin. He couldn’t help but sink back against the cushion, nervous and excited and sleepy all at once. Jun’s singing stopped soon thereafter, the music continuing without him. “I need to get you home,” Nino protested weakly. “I have to work.”

“Call in sick,” Sho said, fingertips fluttering across his face. He found the mole on Nino’s chin, poking and chuckling. “Ahhhh, you’re so cute.”

He opened his eyes, saw that Jun was standing only a few feet away, holding the karaoke microphone and watching with a grin. “I’m not that cute,” Nino denied. These two sure turned stupid with liquor in them.

“Look at his hands, they’re tiny,” Jun said, sounding like a damn expert, and Sho’s wandering fingers left his face, grabbing his hand.

“Oh wow,” Sho marveled, prodding his palm. “Wow, they’re small. Cuuuuute….”

He had to take a bit of offense at that. “Hey, not everything about me is small, alright?”

Jun and Sho both laughed, louder than necessary on account of them both being stupid drunk. “Alright,” Sho finally said, “fine, fine, we’ll go.”

Sho pulled out his wallet, refusing Nino’s money as they settled the bill for the room. It was a true ordeal getting back to Amagasa, with Sho in the front seat of the car beside him trying to give him directions (even though Nino knew the way) and Jun in the back seat with the windows rolled down, sticking his head out for fresh air almost like a dog.

He pulled into the garage and wanted to head home, sleep in his own bed, but Jun was around him, all over him, hugging him from behind and nudging him forward to the elevator. “Stay with us, I’ll make you breakfast. We’ll call Aiba-kun, have him cover downstairs a few hours so you can sleep in. He won’t mind, he loves you!”

“I really shouldn’t,” Nino complained, as he tried and failed to ignore the feeling of Jun pressed along his back, insistent. 

“Too late,” Sho said as soon as the elevator doors shut, wiggling his phone. “I already texted him.”

“Joshima-san is going to fire me,” Nino whined. “I never thought I’d say this, but you two are bad influences.”

As soon as the elevator opened on the sixth floor, Jun hoisted him, lifting Nino into his arms like he weighed nothing, Sho laughing and getting out his keys. They got him inside, Sho unlacing and pulling off Nino’s sneakers and then Jun was carrying him again, princess-style, into the bedroom.

“The couch is fine…oof!” Jun dumped him on the bed with little ceremony, and then the two of them were undressing him. He was on the verge of panic, wondering if they were intent on sleeping with him, but as soon as Jun had yanked Nino’s jeans off, Sho was there tugging on the blankets, bundling Nino up in the chilly air conditioned room. They weren’t going to fuck him. They were _pampering_ him.

Despite all the excitement, despite his seeming inability to ignore how good it had felt when Sho had touched him, when Jun had wrapped his arms around him, he somehow managed to drift off.

—

When he woke, it was because someone was snoring. Nino turned, seeing that at some point, daylight had come, prompting Sho to come into the room and go to sleep. He’d kept a respectful distance, his back to Nino, burrowed under the blankets so he wasn’t much more than a head of messy black hair. Nino got up slowly, hoping he wasn’t disturbing him. On a day like today, Sho was probably wishing he had a fancy vamp sleep unit.

The clock on the microwave read 9:47 AM when he found Jun in the kitchen, back in his nerdy glasses and making an omelette. He was in a sleeveless tee and tight red boxer briefs, a blanket and pillow discarded on the living room sofa behind them, and Nino struggled to keep himself steady. “Morning,” he mumbled, the aftertaste of too many energy drinks coating his tongue.

When Jun turned his head, fluttering his fingers in hello, Nino saw two fresh wounds on his neck. Sometime between depositing Nino in their bed and Sho later joining him there, Sho had drunk from Jun. Nino almost wished he’d been able to watch, creepy as that was.

“I’m still going to work after this,” he decided, taking a swig from the mug of coffee Jun had already left on the counter for him.

“Do whatever you like,” Jun said, not seeming to care if Nino was staring at his hips, the curve of his ass through his underwear. From the scratchy sound of his voice, he had been ill already and would probably spend the remainder of the day resting, sleeping off his hangover. Nino wondered if Sho sucking his blood helped or hindered his recovery. “Aiba-kun’s already there, he called earlier. He doesn’t care that you’ll be late.”

Of course Aiba didn’t care. Because he’d spend the rest of the day giving Nino the third degree, curious as to what had happened to result in Nino spending the night in Sho and Jun’s apartment. Aiba’s imagination drifted to the perverted rather easily. Nino was almost tempted to lie to him and provide lurid details about the imaginary threesome he’d had, in which Sho had sucked his blood while Jun had sucked his…

Jun set the plate of eggs down on the kitchen counter with a dull thud, raising an eyebrow at him. “Eat something. You look like shit.”

Aiba didn’t even comment on Nino appearing in the same clothes when he finally went downstairs for work sometime after 11:00. In fact, he’d never seen Aiba with such a grave look on his face. He was at his security desk, his phone out and some video playing.

“Thanks for covering the desk.” He waved his hand in front of Aiba’s face. “Masaki, what’s wrong?”

Aiba had tears in his eyes, handing Nino his phone. It was a breaking news story, about an enclave in Kobe. They’d been illegally harboring a handful of recently turned vampires, or so the news was reporting. Somehow, some way, they’d gotten out, away from the enclave during daylight hours. Three vampires had managed to kill fourteen people, including two children, in a matter of minutes before burning up in the hot sun. A suicidal charge? A protest against government regulations? The human news was obviously not going to come up with a reason that cast the vampires in a sympathetic light.

All of Kobe, hell, most of the Kansai region was already on government lockdown, the Self-Defense Force was expected to be activated to keep the peace, and the news report speculated that the entire Kobe enclave that had housed them would get the sun for it. Human retaliation against the vampires was expected, and the government was still considering what was to be done.

Nino sat down on top of Aiba’s desk, handing him back his phone. “Fuck.”

Aiba nodded, looking horrified. “It’s the worst that’s happened in almost twenty years, they’re saying.”

“I need to call Yuriko.”

While he’d been upstairs, eating his omelette, people had been murdered and the social order in Japan had reached an all too nasty tipping point. Just last night, he and Jun and Mao and Toma had spent hours with a vampire, with not an inkling of fear about it. It took him almost forty minutes to get through to Yuriko, who had few answers for him. Was Tokyo going on lockdown? No, not yet, but it was on the table. No announcements would likely be made until sundown, when the vampires could be officially informed of what had happened.

Daytime deliveries and mail service continued as usual, but come sunset, he and Aiba went up to Joshima’s apartment together to break the news. The enclave’s leader wasn’t surprised, looking exhausted. He already had his television on, said that his phone had been ringing for hours. Reports were already filtering in about enclaves being harassed around the country, whether it was graffiti or other vandalism. Now that the sun had gone down, Joshima suspected it was going to be a long night in Japan.

“My friend Nakai-san is on the board at the Vampire Rights Commission,” Joshima was saying. “I’m going to get Amagasa’s name on the list of enclaves who are condemning the attacks.”

“What good will that do?” Aiba asked, shaking his head.

“Nothing, in all likelihood,” Joshima agreed, frustrated. “Innocent lives were lost, and we will all be blamed for it, regardless.”

“We’ve gotten no orders for a lockdown yet,” Nino said. “And Agent Yoshitaka is doing her best to keep me updated on everything. She’s responsible for eight different enclaves, so she’s got her hands full.”

“It’s night time now,” Joshima decided. “And you’ve done all you could. I thank you, both of you, for your concern and all your hard work. But we need you tomorrow, more than ever. Please rest well tonight so you can keep the building safe come morning.”

As Aiba and Nino returned to the lobby, they saw vampires leaving as usual. Aiba even grabbed Yokoyama by the arm, risking his wrath. “You shouldn’t go out, Yoko, not tonight,” Aiba pleaded with him.

“I’m not afraid of humans,” Yoko said, heading out the door without looking back.

Nino patted Aiba on the shoulder, knowing there was nothing they could do. While they’d been upstairs with Joshima, the residents of apartment 6B had already gone out, as had Ohno and Maruyama. He couldn’t relax until he’d spoken with all of them.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, Nino,” Ohno told him when Nino’s call got through to him, his voice calm and soothing. “Honestly, it’s going to be okay.”

“Tell Nino I love him!” Maru was shouting in the background of the call. “In case we die!”

Ohno sighed. “If there’s any violence against vampires reported tonight, it may actually be vampire against vampire.”

Nino laughed quietly. “Take care of yourselves. If you die, I’m going to be the one to have to cancel all your damn magazine subscriptions.”

“I’ll do my best to avoid troubling you then,” Ohno replied, hanging up.

Sho didn’t answer Nino’s call, but Jun did. “It’s quiet,” Jun said, speaking to Nino from the Starlight Kiss office. “Hardly anyone out tonight.”

“I’m guessing if vampires can kill fourteen people in broad daylight, then nobody’s interested in seeing what they can do at night.”

“A wise course of action,” Jun said bitterly. He cleared his throat. “Not that any vampire in Japan’s going to be stupid enough to give the humans any more ammunition by attacking anyone tonight. Anyhow, Sho-kun’s on the phone with the airline. Since Tokyo hasn’t been locked down, we’re seeing if we can still take off on Tuesday night.”

The Hawaii trip. In the panic of the day, Nino had almost forgotten. “You’re still going?”

“Have you met Sakurai Sho before?”

Nino looked down, grinning. “Ah, how foolish of me.”

Jun was solemn now. “We haven’t had any cancellations. Nothing comes between a vampire and Waikiki in the moonlight. And I’m going to be with them. It’ll be okay.”

“I’m glad. I’m glad you’re going. Since you have to take pictures for your grandma.”

“Exactly.” Jun took a breath. Nino could hear the worry in his voice. “Thank you for calling though. And for all you’re doing at the enclave. It means a lot to him, even if he won’t say so.”

“It’s my job.”

“And it’s mine to get us all to Hawaii safely,” Jun assured him. “Good night, Nino. Go to bed, because I’m not staying up to make you anything in the morning.”

“You say the sweetest things,” he teased before hanging up.

Nino was worried. Vampires attacking humans, it had happened all his life. They were predators, they craved human blood. It was the natural order of things. But now he worked among them, had even befriended them. Not every vampire was vicious or spiteful, even as the government monitored them, controlled them. They went to blood banks, they kept blood contracts. They contented themselves with animal blood. They had businesses and friends and homes. It wasn’t a dark age, not any longer. Vampires were stronger and faster, but they were vastly outnumbered. And every human knew their vulnerability. He was truly worried. 

He had to hope that Jun’s assurances and Sho’s determination would be enough.

—

They’d left with little fanfare, not long after sundown. Until their taxi arrived, Sho had been juggling an armload of paperwork - travel visas, passport information, his detailed itineraries. Jun had been nearly silent, fiddling with a white shell necklace around his neck, unable to look away from Sho. Nino bid them farewell as Aiba turned things over to Nishikido-kun, the government-appointed security guard. While Aiba was still on during daylight hours, as a security precaution the Bureau of Undead Management had contracted out with private security companies Japan-wide to place guards in every enclave in the evenings. A temporary measure, they said, until things in Kobe calmed down. 

Which they still hadn’t. The news didn’t report it, but there were rumors on the Internet that vampires in Kobe, Nagasaki, and some smaller cities in Tottori had been physically attacked. That none of them had retaliated was amazing, but not a guarantee forever. Eventually they were going to go after a vampire with a much shorter fuse.

None of the vampires liked it, a human on duty in the building that hadn’t been appointed by Joshima, their leader. Yoshitaka had assured everyone, via a letter Nino had been obliged to put in every mailbox, that the guards were from an agency that had long worked with vampires. But like always, the vampires were slow to trust. Nishikido, a virtual stranger, now had access to Aiba’s master set of keys and the elevator codes. 

Nino had argued with Yoshitaka back and forth over the phone and email all day, asking that Joshima be allowed to hire a security guard of his choosing or coordinate among the residents to police the building themselves at night. Thus far, he’d made little headway, since Yuriko was working even longer hours than he was, going from enclave to enclave and helping out at headquarters too. And even if she wanted to make an exception for Amagasa, her supervisors would probably say no anyhow. She had actually apologized, telling Nino she wished she could do more. Nino could see now that Yoshitaka Yuriko was a strange woman, make no mistake, but she didn’t want any harm to come to the residents. Unfortunately, she still had her bosses to answer to.

Having a stranger in the building made Amagasa realize how much they’d been taking for granted. The last two days, Nino had never seen Amagasa’s vampires show Aiba Masaki so much respect. They shook his hand, made small talk with him. Let out begrudging thank yous because he’d kept them safe all this time with little reward and without complaint or fear of them.

He and Aiba headed upstairs, sitting together on Nino’s loveseat and watching the news. No matter what channel they put on, the news was either about Kobe, with profiles and interviews about the victims, or information about what the government was planning to do. In Tokyo there had been protests at ward offices, and dozens of vampire-run businesses closed indefinitely to keep from bringing trouble to their neighborhoods. Governments in other countries were calling on Japan to crack down harder on its vampire populace, to raise taxes on their property, on the blood-infused food and drink they consumed.

Eventually Aiba couldn’t take much more, going home to try and sleep. Nino fell asleep in his living room with the TV still on. When his phone went off, it was still dark, and he groaned quietly, fumbling around for it on the floor beneath him. It was Matsumoto Jun calling, which confused him as he tried to blink away sleep. How could Jun be calling if he was supposed to be in the air?

His phone screen read 4:09 AM as he answered. “How long does it take to get to Hawaii? Did you teleport?”

“Nino, I need your help!”

He bolted up, feeling almost light-headed as he sat up a little too abruptly. “Jun, what’s wrong?”

Jun’s voice was shaking, as though he could barely keep it together. “We’re still at Haneda! The flight was delayed for five hours and…and we were supposed to leave at 4:45 now, cutting it really close but…fuck, fuck, fuck!” He was rambling, and Nino could barely hear him over the sounds of airport noise around him. “Some of the passengers found out we were going to be on the plane and raised a ruckus…I mean, we’ve had this fucking thing booked for ages, and the airline usually notifies people that there’s going to be vampires in the cargo hold. The cargo hold, Nino, what can they do in the fucking cargo hold!”

Even though his heart was racing, he couldn’t afford to panic. Not when Jun sounded like he was about to explode. “Jun. Slow down, slow down. How can I help?”

“We just got bumped! Sho-kun’s on board, they all are already, in the special travel compartments for vampires. But they’re bumping all of us just because they can get away with it. And…and they’re supposed to be taking the travel containers out but they’re asking me to move them. Like we have to leave the airport, but they’re not going to be finished unloading until 4:30, and the sun’s up right at 5:00 and they don’t even fucking care and…”

“Jun! Listen to me, I don’t need every single detail. What do you need me to do?”

“We have to get them somewhere. None of the rental car places open until 8:00, and the buses start running at 5:00, but I can’t put them on a bus in broad daylight! There’s nowhere at the airport to hold them. I can’t check us in at any of the hotels near the airport this early. We need to get them out of here, now.”

“How many people?”

“There’s five on the tour, five. And then Sho and…”

“Okay so that’s seven people to transport,” Nino was saying, already thinking ahead as he turned the lights on, fumbling around for the paper copy of the Amagasa directory he kept in the closet. “They won’t fit in the car, and we’ll need something dark to put them inside. I can get a van…”

“Where are you going to get a van at 4:00 in the morning?”

“That’s not for you to worry about, alright? Just…where I can find you? Where can I meet you?” He was already losing time, still talking to Jun. The sun would be up in about 45 minutes.

“I’m in the international terminal. Where should I go? Where should I bring them? Nino, where should I bring them?”

Nino was thinking as fast as he could, his phone shaking in his hand as he listened to Jun’s petrified voice. “Get them underground. Underground, you hear me?”

“There isn’t…I don’t think we can get underground…”

He put Jun on speaker, was already getting dressed, pulling on the first t-shirt he could grab from his drawer. “The parking garage then, get to the very middle of the parking garage, as far from the exit as possible. Did you pack any towels? Blankets?” 

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Okay, okay,” Nino said, catching his breath, flipping through the directory, quickly scanning for a vehicle rental place in the neighborhood. Finding none, he skipped ahead. He found TOKIO Movers, found the number for Joshima’s friend Yamaguchi-san. “Jun, this is going to be okay. As soon as they’re unloaded from the plane, you get them covered. I know you’re all packed for Hawaii, but get them covered. Shirts, jackets, anything you’ve got. Get them to the garage and I’ll come to you. I’ll come to you, do you hear me?”

“Nino?”

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was 4:37 when Yamaguchi Tatsuya came to a screeching stop in front of the Amagasa Vampire Enclave. The sky was already hinting at the pending sunrise, and Nino had nearly bitten his fingernails to the quick waiting for the moving man to arrive. He arrived in a large van, but not so large that it wasn’t going to make it into the garage at Haneda. Nino had never been so happy to live in Ota Ward, only kilometers between Amagasa and the airport. 

If Jun and Sho had been planning to fly out of Narita…

“Get in, get in!” Yamaguchi hollered, unlocking the door and Nino got inside, his arms overloaded with all of his bath towels and the blankets off of his bed. He was lost under the mound of fabric for a few moments, and Yamaguchi had to lean over him to tug the van door closed.

But then they were off, ignoring the speed limit and the pair of them cursing their lungs out every time they got stopped by a red light. Nino was on the verge of a panic attack as each minute ticked away. “The international terminal, the parking garage of the international terminal!”

“We’ll get there,” Yamaguchi kept assuring him. “We’ll get there.”

4:42 AM. 4:50 AM. 4:54 AM…

“The sun’s coming up,” Nino screeched, and he was amazed Yamaguchi didn’t lean over and smack him in the face. “Yamaguchi-san!”

4:59 AM. 5:02 AM. 5:05 AM…

The tires squealed as they passed other cars on their way to the international terminal, and Nino thought they were going to crash if they went any faster. The sun was rising. The sun was rising, and they were almost out of time. Finally the massive oval-shaped parking structure loomed ahead of them and he dialed Jun’s number.

“We’re here!” he cried as soon as Jun answered. “We’re here, we’re in a red van, it says TOKIO Movers on the side. TOKIO Movers!”

“Back by the elevator! Nino, hurry!”

“The elevator, the elevator!” Nino said as they entered the garage. Yamaguchi honked angrily at a car trying to turn in front of them, the van rushing around it and into the garage. Nino nearly got out and broke into a run as they had to wait for the entry gate to rise and let them inside, Yamaguchi ignoring the ticket that got spat out from the machine. Nino saw a parking attendant raise his hands, trying to wave at them to take the ticket, but Yamaguchi kept driving.

The elevators were as far from the entrance and the rising sun as they could get, and he saw Jun waving frantically. Around him Nino could see a collection of suitcases, half of them open and picked through. Behind Jun, huddling desperately in a corner was a massive heap of clothes, human-sized lumps covered in Hawaiian shirts and dresses.

Yamaguchi stopped the van and put it in park as Nino jumped out. Jun nearly crushed him in gratitude, and Nino allowed himself to enjoy Jun’s embrace for about a second. “Hurry, come on, we have to get them in here.”

“The women first,” came a familiar voice from the jumble of clothing. It was Sho, though he sounded weak. Outside the sun was rising and even this far back in the garage, there was no way of ensuring that they’d be safe. “Please, Nino, the women first.”

Three women popped their heads out from the pile of clothes. Jun held out his hand. “Mizuhara-san, they’re here to help.” A pale woman in her early 20’s, shaking from head to toe and in tears, allowed Yamaguchi-san to walk her to the back of the van while Nino helped another woman, Becky-san, who was holding an umbrella in her quivering hands as a last resort. He had to slip the umbrella away from her freezing cold fingers, wrapping the comforter from his bed around her, pulling it over her head. A third, a woman in colorful clothes named Naka-san, refused to let the humans touch her, stepping up and into the van, trying to hide her fear by acting proud. Once the three ladies were inside, lying on top of a thick moving blanket Yamaguchi had brought, the men came out next.

An incredibly tall vampire named Nagase helped an older man, a bald vampire named Takahashi-san, into the TOKIO Movers van. The both of them clapped Nino on the shoulder, grateful. Then there was just Sho, who started gathering up the scattered clothes, putting them into the suitcases.

“Sho-kun, there’s no time for that.” Jun tried to get him to stop.

“They’re our customers,” Sho was protesting stubbornly, although Nino could see him quaking in fear as he put anything he could get his hands on into the first bag in front of him. “Jun, they’re our customers. We can’t leave their things behind…”

Jun yanked on Sho’s arm so hard, Nino thought Jun would tear it out of its socket. “Get in the van. I’ll worry about this.”

Nino helped Sho into the van, where he proceeded to huddle up on the blanket with his five unfortunate tour members. Together, Nino and Yamaguchi got more of the blankets that Yamaguchi had brought, helping the vampires to cover themselves with them as best they could, apologizing for the musty smell of the blankets that were usually saved for moving furniture. Even though the van was dark and windowless in the rear, light might still get in through the windshield to hurt them. Once the vampires were covered, he and Yamaguchi got a blanket rigged up between the front seats and the open rear section of the van. Jun hauled all of the luggage into the van, closing the doors behind him.

He met Nino’s eyes briefly, his lips whispering a quick “thank you” before he joined Sho and the others in the back, holding up the blanket that would hopefully keep the light out.

They made it out of the parking garage as Tokyo was rising for the day around them. Nino called ahead to Aiba, and he was unlocking the unoccupied apartment inside Amagasa for the tour participants to use. He had already enlisted the help of the building’s other BCs, gathering up extra blankets and pillows and futons for them to use to rest until sunset that evening.

It was just after 6 AM when they made it back to Amagasa, heading underground to the safety of the garage, and though Nino had heard a few groans and moans of discomfort from the back of the van, it seemed that all six vampires made it intact, the heavy moving blankets keeping any of them from burning up. Yamaguchi-san pulled up right in front of the elevator, and Aiba and Erika helped get all of Sho and Jun’s guests inside, escorting them upstairs. Aiba returned, working with Jun to get all of the luggage secure, hauling it upstairs to lock in the mail room.

Sho, who looked so exhausted he could keel over, wanted to shake Yamaguchi’s hand, offering to pay him for his help. “Your money’s no good,” Yamaguchi insisted, refusing the handshake and instead wrapping Sho up in a bear hug. “I hope you’ll make it to Hawaii soon. You look like you need a vacation.”

With that, the moving man offered a wave, driving off without so much as a complaint. As soon as he was gone, Sho collapsed against Nino, heavy and clumsy.

“Hold on, Sho-chan, it’s okay.” Nino pushed the button for the elevator. “Just hold on, just a few minutes more.”

Sho was moaning, his body so hot even through his clothes that Nino thought Sho would burn him. He needed to get inside to rest and fast. The elevator arrived and he brought Sho up to 6B, having to awkwardly fumble in the pocket of Sho’s khaki pants to get the key.

He found a strength he didn’t know he had, dragging Sho’s dead weight up from the genkan and through the cool apartment. It was a strange reversal of the other night as Nino got Sho onto the bed, pulling his sneakers off. He was burning up because knowing Sho, he’d probably gone the whole ride in the van making sure the tour participants were fully covered with the blankets at risk to his own safety.

Nino sighed, tugging open Sho’s silly vest and unbuttoning his long-sleeved shirt. “Always in a dozen layers, you prude. Afraid we’ll see your elbows or something?” he muttered. He had to cool Sho’s body down, would have to go in the bathroom and wet a towel or get an ice pack to bring his temperature back down to whatever seemed vampire normal.

Sho let out another little pathetic groan as Nino tried tugging off his shirt. He tossed Sho’s things onto the floor and was pulling at the white tank top Sho had worn under his shirt when he finally noticed. From just above his wrists and all the way up his arms, across his chest and down his abdomen. Almost the entirety of his torso and both arms, covered in scattered patches of angry, pink scar tissue. It might have been worse, years ago, the scarring, but the skin was still puckered in some places, slightly rough to the touch.

“Sho-chan, what happened to you?” he mumbled, unable to keep his curious fingers from stroking his long-ago wounded bicep.

He heard the apartment door open and close, and he stepped back, hearing Jun come running. Their eyes met, and he wanted to say something about the scarring. But he couldn’t, not yet.

“He’s really hot.” Nino shut his eyes, annoyed with his choice of words. “His skin. He’s too hot, I think.”

Together he and Jun spent the next hour with damp cloths, wiping down Sho’s arms and legs, his chest, pressing a towel of ice to his forehead. They were quiet, sitting on the king-sized bed on either side of him, attending to him. Their eyes met again and again, the two of them watching over a vampire like he was a sick child. Sho’s moans of discomfort eventually eased, and soon enough he was snoring. As soon as that happened, the snoring, Nino could see Jun finally relax, the tension slipping from his shoulders. If Sho was snoring, apparently things were all fine again.

“We should let him rest,” Jun whispered, not minding if Nino saw him stroke his fingers across Sho’s forehead, brushing aside some of his unruly hair.

Jun got off the bed, and Nino followed, shutting the bedroom door.

He headed for the genkan, Jun at his heels. “I should probably get downstairs. Yuriko will want to know about this, all the shit at the airport. So you can file a complaint. Especially if your flight was pre-booked and people were aware and…”

“Do that tomorrow, alright? I’ll email you the contact details for our guests. You’ll be better off spending your time getting in touch with their enclaves so they can all get home safely tonight,” Jun said.

“Okay,” Nino replied, knowing that was probably a better use of his day. He reached out a hand, gave Jun’s arm a squeeze. “You should rest too, you know. You’ve had a long night.”

Jun nodded, taking a step closer. “Kazu…”

“Whoa,” Nino protested, holding up his hands teasingly. He really liked the sound of his first name, if shortened, coming from Jun’s mouth. This close, he got to observe first hand the tiny little mole just above Jun’s upper lip, a companion underneath on the lip itself. A larger, darker beacon of a mole hiding in the shadow under his lower lip. He was suddenly enamored with them all. “I didn’t do anything so great to warrant that…”

“You saved his life. You saved all of them. I couldn’t do anything and…”

“Jun-kun, be realistic now…” He tried to be his usual flippant self. “It was Yamaguchi-san’s van that did all the work.”

But now Jun had him pinned between himself and the wall of the genkan. There was something in Jun’s eyes that he liked, way more than he ought to. Jun looked on the edge of tears, but the edge of something else too. And yet it still surprised him when Jun’s hand slipped behind him, grasping hold of his neck. 

He could only whisper a “wait, don’t” before Jun was leaning down, bringing their lips together. 

The intensity of feeling behind Jun’s kiss nearly brought him to his knees, letting out a soft whimper of need before tilting his head slightly to find a better angle. Jun’s other hand came around him, insistent, possessive, demanding. He tried to pull away, embarrassed, and Jun only pulled him closer, licking at the corners of his mouth until Nino allowed him to deepen their kiss, to slip his tongue inside to taste him.

Jun was kissing him, and he was kissing Jun and everything else seemed far less important. He found that he was much happier once he gave up on protesting, sliding his hands up, clinging to Jun’s shirt, fingers bunching in the cotton fabric, grasping and holding on. Breathing in, breathing out, gasping when Jun took his mouth away only to press quick, desperate kisses against his face, his chin, the side of his neck. Jun was crying, overwhelmed with everything he’d endured, and Nino could feel each teardrop as it hit him, running down his face and neck.

“Kazu,” Jun was whispering reverently against his skin, making Nino hard with a mere two syllables. “Kazu.”

If he was a morally reprehensible person, he’d see it all through to its logical conclusion, letting Jun fuck him right there. But that was something he really couldn’t allow, even as he reveled in the desperate friction of Jun’s long, lean body pressed close, his hips slowly grinding against him.

He moved, slipping away and already missing Jun’s sinfully perfect mouth tasting and worshipping his. “Jun-kun,” he said, catching his breath. “I…we can’t.”

“I know,” Jun mumbled, running a hand through his hair. “I know that. I know that.”

“We have a lot to do.”

“Right,” Jun said, wiping his eyes, looking aside.

“Take care of him,” he said, opening the door and heading out.

—

The sun hadn’t set when Jun found him again, coming down to the lobby shortly after 5:00 in the evening. He spent a few minutes out in the lobby talking to Aiba, explaining everything that had happened before coming to the reception desk and dinging the little bell with a half-hearted grin.

Nino approached cautiously, having thankfully spent most of the day on the phone with the other enclaves, talking with Yuriko as well. He’d had little time to think about what had transpired upstairs, how badly he’d wanted Jun and at the same time feeling like he’d somehow betrayed Sho.

“Can I come in?” Jun asked, drumming his fingers on the countertop. 

Nino looked past Jun’s shoulder, saw that Aiba was intensely focused on the monitors, on keeping the building safe. “Alright,” he agreed quietly, moving to open the door to the mail room. 

Jun busied himself for a few moments, looking over the luggage. The guests would have to come down, open things up and make sure they had all their clothes back. Nino sat in his chair by the computer, nervously spinning side to side. When Jun finally stopped poking at the suitcases, he came over to sit on the countertop opposite Nino, his back against the heavy glass window that ran along the inside of the mail room.

“Thank you. First and foremost, thank you. For everything you did to help,” Jun said.

Nino shook his head. “It’s my…”

“It wasn’t, actually. It wasn’t your job, but you were the only person I could think to call. I just knew I could trust you to help.”

Nino felt a flush creeping into his face, hiding his embarrassment by spinning a little more in his chair, keeping his face out of Jun’s sight. “Well, you’re welcome then.”

“You saw Sho-kun.”

“Yes.”

“His scars.”

“I did.”

“He was turned against his will, Sho-kun was.”

Nino didn’t turn his chair back, but he stopped moving, listening to Jun speak. Though he wasn’t sure this was Jun’s tale to tell.

“It was a rogue vampire, who had fled his enclave. I guess he was consumed with hunger, since he’d been on the run and was being chased down by the government. Sho-kun, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been in the neighborhood around here, Amagasa, visiting friends. The vampire attacked him, nearly killed him, left him at Amagasa’s doorstop as a lesson.”

Nino had a hard time connecting the person Jun was talking about, the random vampire victim, with the friendly, hardworking Sakurai Sho.

“Misako-san found him when she was coming for her shift, and even though the sun was rising, Joshima-san came out to help him inside.” Jun held up his thumb, gesturing behind him. “Joshima turned him right there, on the floor of the lobby, even though he didn’t want it. He was almost dead, but he was still saying no. But Joshima-san, he couldn’t bear to let him die, murdered in cold blood by a vampire who refused to play nice.”

Nino shut his eyes, unable to bear the thought of the lobby he entered every day, the linoleum he walked on, covered with Sho’s blood.

Jun had crossed his arms, was upset but kept speaking. “Sho was a tour guide, even back then. Travel was his life, and there were so many things he’d never get to experience properly, ever again. The sun rising over Mt. Fuji, coffee and croissants for breakfast in a Paris cafe. Places that would be cut off to him forever. You know how impulsive younger vampires can be. They can hardly control themselves. I guess he tried a few times, to gather up the courage, to walk outside in daylight and do it…”

He’d tried to die. Sho had been so lost, so unhappy about his new “life” that he’d tried to take matters into his own hands.

“He’s told me how much it hurt, going out there, ripping his shirt off in hopes it would go faster. They can heal, vampires, better than humans, so it could have been so much worse. I guess the security guard at the time had thrown his jacket on Sho, onto his face first, otherwise he wouldn’t still be as handsome as he is now.” Jun allowed himself a tiny smile at that. “He could have had surgery, could have gotten work done to lessen the scarring, but he kept it to remind himself how close he’d come. He told me that he was recovering in the hospital, embarrassed and ashamed, when he came up with Starlight Kiss. He decided that his dream wasn’t entirely dead, that he could still do what he loved. Coming so close to death brought him back. It’s why he’s so stubborn. It’s why he makes ridiculous schedules. He wants to bring happiness, he wants to prove that the world isn’t entirely closed off to their kind. It’s amazing. He’s amazing.”

“I didn’t know.” He looked up, saw Jun watching him closely. Matsumoto Jun, Sho’s biggest fan. “It’s why you stay with him, isn’t it?”

Jun nodded. “He needs me.”

“He _loves_ you,” Nino pointed out.

Jun looked down, frustrated. “And still he wants me to leave him. I know it. And I know that you know about it, too.”

Nino couldn’t help scooting his chair across the floor, resting his hand on Jun’s knee. “It’s because he cares…”

“What if something happens? What if the person who throws a brick through the window or sends him nasty messages does something worse? What if he’s leading another tour and something like what happened today happens again? He’s better with me than without me.” Jun’s voice was so quiet, Nino could barely hear him. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

“And you think becoming a vampire is the way?” Jun didn’t even flinch at Nino’s knowledge of what had happened between him and Sho. “Isn’t that a little extreme? Why not just sign another blood contract?”

“He’s going to be thirty-three forever. And that’s not the case for me.”

“He told me that he wants you to grow old. That he wants that for you more than anything.”

“But he doesn’t want me to _die_ , whether it’s growing old beside him or from letting him turn me,” Jun protested. “It’s why he’s pushing me away. He doesn’t want to see it happen to me. Each year I grow older under contract to him, it reminds him that I’ll die. Tomorrow or fifty years from now. It’s out of sight, out of mind with him. And he won’t turn me because he remembers how painful it was for him, and he doesn’t want me to go through it.”

“You can’t be mad at him for that, though,” Nino said.

“I know,” Jun admitted. “I know that. And if I’d been a vampire today, I’d probably have burned up in the terminal at Haneda. The fact that I’m human, right now, meant that I was able to help save him. And he’s such a pain in the ass that he’s going to spend the last weeks of my contract reminding me of it, too.”

Nino kind of doubted that the reason Sho was pushing him away was simply because he couldn’t bear to see Jun die. It was more complex than that. Sho believed that it was in Jun’s best interests to remain human, that he’d have a better life that way. With all the restrictions on the enclaves, Nino could at least understand Sho’s reasoning. What Sakurai Sho didn’t seem to comprehend, or was unwilling to comprehend, was how much Jun actually loved him in return. That Jun wasn’t looking for a “better” life. The life Jun wanted was one where they stayed together, no matter the complications. Sho wanted to avoid complications altogether and was willing to sacrifice his own happiness, a future with Jun, in order to achieve that. It was all very romantic, he supposed. A grand, fucked up mess, but still romantic.

And as for Nino, drawn so easily into the sticky web that was Sho and Jun’s relationship, he didn’t even know what his place was. Between Jun kissing him like a drowning man craves oxygen and the way Sho had gotten close to him at the karaoke place the other night…and then of course at Starlight Kiss, when he’d watched them together and got the sense that they’d liked him watching… 

Whatever he was, Nino at least knew he wasn’t just a bit player on the outskirts of their story any longer.

“Jun-kun, if you’re looking for answers to come from me, I can tell you right now that I don’t have any.”

Jun’s hand caught him by the chin, giving him a little squeeze. “Don’t get cute.”

He held up his small hands for Jun’s inspection. “Remember? It’s my default setting.”

Jun released him, shaking his head. “He’s going to be so jealous that I got to kiss you first.”

“We shouldn’t have…” Nino paused, hands gripping the arms of his rolling chair. “Wait, what do you mean _first_?”

Jun’s foot shot out, hitting the cushion of Nino’s chair and pushing him away. He hopped down off the counter, offering him only a devastatingly sly wink in response.

“Hey, get back here! I was listening to you seriously! I was listening to all your dramatic relationship talk. You can’t just drop a bomb like that, Matsumoto!”

Jun blew him a kiss before opening the mail room door and letting himself out. The bell at the counter dinged a few seconds later, and Nino looked up to see Aiba Masaki with a smile so bright he could have served as a Christmas illumination display all by himself. He couldn’t even speak, he was so excited.

Nino pointed at him, shaking his head in disgust. 

“Don’t you even fucking start.”

—

Jun refused to let Sho leave the enclave for the next several nights to allow him to recover. “It’s best you don’t see him,” Jun had messaged him. “He’s really annoying when I tell him what to do.”

Agent Yoshitaka had met with Sho and Jun in their apartment, getting official statements from them about the fiasco at Haneda. And though Sho had wanted to keep a low profile before, not wanting to make complaints about his mail being defaced or the office being damaged, this time the people on his tour had been affected, and he was adamant about wanting them to be compensated.

It was a mess all around, Yoshitaka told him, and Nino was fairly certain he’d never seen anyone look as tired as she was. The Bureau was running her ragged, and they were understaffed and underprepared for all the measures they were taking on. And still Yoshitaka said she was going to fight to get the tour group taken care of. It turned out that Sho had booked the group for the Hawaii trip more than six months ago, and all the human passengers had received notice when making their own bookings. Regardless of the current anti-vampire climate in Japan, the airline had had no right to deny Sho’s group their flight.

Sho and Jun had worked at home the last few nights, sorting out cancellation fees with the hotel and tour operators in Hawaii and issuing refunds to their customers. Thankfully, none of the guests seemed to blame Starlight Kiss Tours for what had happened. Yoshitaka was hopeful that the airline or maybe even the Vampire Rights Commission would reimburse Sho for the whole mess. She wasn’t hopeful that the staff at the airport would apologize for how they’d bungled everything else, getting the vampires off the plane so close to sunrise and having no measures in place to keep them safe.

“We’ll take what we can get,” Jun had said, hanging around Nino’s reception window a few afternoons later. “He’s already planning to reschedule, because stuff like this just makes him more determined to succeed.”

Nino was going through the mail Kazama had delivered that day, sighing at the number of anti-vampire flyers that were coming through. “Get them out of OUR country” or “Vampires must die!” most of them said, simple paper flyers that were mailed en masse, not even bothering to check if the addresses they were going to belonged to humans or not.

He held one up, showing it to Jun. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

Jun rolled his eyes. “Has Yoshitaka-san been able to track anything?”

Nino dumped them into the paper recycling bin, sighing. “With all the shit going on, they don’t even have time to go after little stuff like this. Nasty flyers can’t compare to people calling in bomb threats to enclaves.”

“But aren’t the people sending out mail like that traceable? If they’d send those things in the mail, surely they’d do a lot worse.”

Nino shrugged. “She told me that it’ll blow over soon.”

The news broadcasts were far less hysterical now, especially since the guilty Kobe enclave had quietly relocated elsewhere instead of facing execution. Instead of outrage, it seemed that the general public was experiencing vampire fatigue. Most seemed to prefer when vampires were something rarely spoken about, second class citizens who mostly kept to themselves. Arrests of humans threatening violence against the enclaves was helping to cut down on some of the more dangerous elements, but pockets of unrest remained. With the mail coming through that week, Nino knew it wasn’t entirely over.

In the newspaper that morning, there’d been a headline story about “sun videos” being uploaded to Japanese message forums, gruesome videos shot in countries who treated vampires far more harshly. The videos, shot illicitly, showed vampires being executed - dragged out into the streets, witnesses cheering as they burned. Nino had already emailed a warning around to Amagasa, advising them to keep a close watch on their inboxes in case something got past their spam filters.

“Sho-kun wants you to come by for dinner,” Jun said when Nino finished with the mail. “Since he’s doing better.”

Nino’s pulse started racing, and he busied himself with the mail cart, loading packages on it for his afternoon delivery route through the building. “Good. It’s good he’s better.”

It had been easier on Nino’s heart the last few days, with Sho mostly out of commission and Jun staying with him. Nino had been unable to think about Sho without thinking of him lying in bed, seeing the damage he’d done to himself so long ago. Before Nino had even been born.

“We had a long talk last night, Sho-kun and me,” Jun said quietly. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. With everything going on right now, and after what happened at the airport, he’s agreed to keep me as his blood contract,” Jun explained. When Nino looked up in surprise, Jun smirked. “But it’s just for one year this time. It’s a bit unusual, and the ward office is going to give us shit for it, but it means that in a year, he and I will have some decisions to make. And you know what those decisions involve.”

Sho had finally compromised, agreeing to keep Jun around but shortening the contract. But Jun still held the upper hand, would be spending the next year trying to change Sho’s mind. Jun still wanted Sho to turn him. “It’ll be good for the business, I’m sure,” Nino said. “Since he can keep you on to help him at Starlight Kiss.”

It was nearly impossible to work in a vampire-owned business if you weren’t a vampire yourself or a blood contract. Working for an enclave like Nino and Aiba did was just about the only exception out there, on account of the hours they had to work.

“We talked about you, too,” Jun said, though Nino couldn’t read the expression on his face just then.

He couldn’t help asking. “Me? Why me?”

Jun leaned away from the window, enigmatic and attractive as ever. “Guess you’ll have to come by tonight and find out.”

—

At first, Sho was all business when Nino pressed the buzzer for 6B shortly after sunset that night. He was still a bit slow in his movements, like someone who’d just about recovered from a nasty bout of the flu. Nino supposed sun exposure, even the slightest, indirect amount, was the closest a vampire could come to a real illness these days. 

“Glad to see you on your feet, Sho-chan,” Nino said, deciding not to remark on Sho’s clothes. He felt honored that Sho now felt comfortable enough around him to have made such a change. He was in sweats and a v-neck tee, not hiding the patches of pink covering the skin of his forearms or peeking out from the top of his shirt. 

He ushered Nino into the living room, where their table was covered with paperwork. “Matsumoto-kun has already told you, yes? He’s agreed to stay on as my BC until August of next year.”

Nino didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that. He was on the verge of offering “congratulations,” but that didn’t seem quite right. So he said nothing. Sho sat Nino down on the couch with him and explained what all the forms meant, since Nino would be responsible for getting them submitted to the Bureau and the ward office. Everything was already filled out and ready to go. Nino’s eyes were drawn to the dates. Matsumoto Jun, born 30 August 1983…and Sakurai Sho, born 25 January 1949.

Sho seemed to notice this, frowning, clearing his throat and starting to gather up the papers, shoving them into a folder he’d prepared for Nino. “So we understand that with all the chaos right now, it may take a while to get things sorted out. It’s a great help, having you around to work with us on this.”

“The ward office loves me,” Nino declared, tapping the folder with his finger. “I’m very good at sweet talking them. Getting this filed will be easier than you think.”

“Well, thank you,” Sho said. When their eyes met, Nino could tell Sho wanted to say something more, but the timing wasn’t quite right yet.

Jun called out from the kitchen. “Omurice!”

Sho got up slowly, gesturing for Nino to sit at the dining table. “He tends to write obscene things with the ketchup.” He raised his voice so Jun could hear him. “You’d think Matsumoto Jun was still twelve years old!”

Jun was all smiles as he came in from the kitchen with plates for himself and Nino. “Sho-kun, be reasonable, is a twelve year old skilled enough to draw this with a ketchup bottle?”

Nino covered his mouth, laughing as he glanced down at Jun’s condiment stylings. Nino’s egg was topped with a rather detailed ketchup penis, while Jun had drawn a pair of breasts on his. 

“Please enjoy,” Jun said. “Sho-kun’s just angry he can’t have any.”

“I could eat it if I really wanted,” Sho protested, sitting glumly at the table. “Matsumoto, I could be eating off your plate before you even knew it.”

“I’d like to see you try it, old man.”

Sho crossed his arms, annoyed and grumbling under his breath, and Nino couldn’t help laughing. It was good to see them teasing each other, acting affectionate with one another. He’d been used to their awkward silences, the longing looks that meant more than Nino could really understand. Perhaps their long talk, the one Jun had spoken of, had gone a long way in repairing what was broken between them. If anything, it had put off a truly momentous decision for another twelve months.

Ketchup dick aside, Jun’s omurice was delicious. If there was something he was good at, it was whipping together comfort food dishes. Unlike the last dinner they’d shared, Jun and Sho actually made eye contact. They kept the conversation light, on topics like TV shows they watched and speculating if Mao-chan and Toma were trying to get pregnant, but still waiting to tell them.

“It would be the most spoiled baby in the universe,” Sho teased. “You should have seen him when Shun-kun’s baby was born, he sent them a truckload of diapers.”

“It wasn’t a truckload! And how I spend my money is none of your business.”

Sho pointed at him. “I pay your salary! I technically bought those diapers! You could have put my name on the card, too!”

Nino ate his dinner, keeping mostly to himself. It was wonderful to see them like this, relaxed, arguing over stupid things instead of heavier topics like Jun’s mortality. Over government regulations and defaced mail. Jun cleared the plates sometime after 9:30 and once the dishwasher was rumbling in the kitchen, Sho started to look a little nervous. Nino knew why. There was something to talk about now, something that concerned him. 

If Sho was angry that he and Jun had kissed, he certainly didn’t look it. And if he really had been upset, Nino doubted he’d have been treated to dinner. The three of them moved to the living room, putting on the TV, but keeping the volume low. Maybe Sho just wanted the background noise. Jun and Sho sat on their couch while Nino sat in a chair just to the side.

It was Jun who spoke first. “Nino. Sho-kun wants to bite you.”

“Oi!” Sho squealed, smacking his hand against the sofa cushion. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jun smiled. “You would have taken twenty minutes to get to the point. I thought I’d save Nino the agony of listening to you ramble about scents and pheromones and all that crap…”

“Pheromones?” Nino asked, knowing that he was probably turning red. He was kind of on Sho’s side here, appalled by Jun’s straightforward admission.

“You asshole!” Sho was equally embarrassed, his voice muffled behind a pillow. “I can’t ask him now!”

Jun, sitting at Sho’s side, laughed hysterically at his discomfort. “Humans like certain scents. Flowers, clean laundry, that sort of thing. Well, vampires do too. It’s chemical, in the end. He likes how I smell…and he likes how you smell.”

Self-consciously, Nino turned his head, quickly sniffing his shirt sleeve, and a mortified Sho flung his pillow at Jun. “I’m going to rip up that contract, Matsumoto, I swear.”

Jun was delighted, hugging the pillow Sho had thrown. “He told me, Nino, from the day he first saw you. He said you were looking at him. There was a connection there.”

“Oh god,” Nino mumbled, remembering how he’d been looking down at Sho through the blinds, how their eyes had met.

“It’s not you that I smelled so much as your blood,” Sho admitted quietly. “We like some blood more than others. Just like sometimes we’re attracted to people who draw genitals on omurice, despite our best efforts.”

“Since my blood type is super rare, I’m not a scent that comes around every day,” Jun said, sounding a bit conceited. “And since Sho-kun has been drinking mine for years now…”

“…I could recognize him from miles away.” Sho couldn’t bear to meet Nino’s gaze. “Not that he’s ever miles away from me, but if you take someone’s blood, you’ll always remember them. Especially if you do it all the time. It’s an addiction, really, and he likes to lord it over me. I could be sitting right here, and he could be in Ueno Park and if he so much as got a paper cut, I’d know.”

“But Sho-kun, you’ve never…you’ve never tried me,” Nino mumbled, not sure what the correct phrasing was. “I’m just an A blood type, there’s millions of people like me out there.”

“If I could explain it, Nino, I would,” Sho said, shrugging. “But since Mr. Rare Blood Type has already let the cat out of the bag, I guess I have to confess that it’s true. From the moment I saw you, I was attracted to you. Well, to your blood first, but if we’re all putting our cards on the table, it’s more than that now. And I think we all know it.”

Sho was confessing to him. Sho _liked_ him. And even as he looked up, seeing the honesty in Sho’s eyes, he was surprised to see not jealousy on Jun’s face, but something closer to pleasure. Jun and his ridiculously kissable lips had made it pretty clear already that he liked Nino too, and it had nothing to do with how he smelled.

“So what exactly are you asking?” Nino inquired, shrinking back a bit into the chair, feeling a bit like he was the omurice, Jun was the hand holding the fork, and Sho was the mouth ready to devour him. Did they just want to fuck him? Did Jun want to watch Sho drink from him and that was it?

“Well, as Jun said, I would like to see where this goes. That is, if you want to,” Sho said. “I know that he and I have our complications…”

“Complications! That’s one way of putting it!” Jun scoffed, laughing until Sho silenced him with a sharp look.

“It’s a lot to ask you, since we do consider you our friend, and we don’t want to mess that up,” Sho continued. “And it’s not just Jun and it’s not just me, but it’s both of us, and that’s…that’s a lot. I’m not asking you to be a blood contract, god knows I can’t afford two of you, especially with the amount of money he spends on clothes…”

“You’re getting off track, Sho-kun,” Jun teased, hitting him with the pillow.

“Alright, alright!” Sho said, rubbing his face, psyching himself up with a few little slaps that made Nino suck in a breath of anticipation. “Nino, will you date us?”

“Oh my god,” Jun said, getting off the couch, laughing so hard it made him start to cough. “That’s the line? That’s the line you’ve been rehearsing? Oh my god!”

Nino couldn’t help but smile, seeing Sho’s face turn to panic. He probably thought he’d sounded smooth and sincere, and bless him, he mostly had. But it was still the weirdest thing Nino had ever been asked, and that included Maru asking for his phone number (and maybe a vial of his blood, if he was “down for it”) in a series of post-it notes stuck to the mail room window one morning. Jun’s mean-spirited laughter was clearly just to hide how much he wanted this too, and there was no way to misinterpret what Sho wanted.

It was more than sex and it was more than his blood. They wanted him to be theirs, despite their “complications.” And Nino knew that even though it had only been about two months, only a summer of knowing them, that he wanted to give it a try. That with only one of them he’d always be torn, but with both of them, it made a strange sort of sense. He loved Sho’s passion and drive, Jun’s honesty and devotion. What did he bring to the arrangement? He wasn’t quite sure, besides whatever weirdness with Sho’s vampire brain chemistry attracted him initially. But it wasn’t on him to question their motives. They wanted him, cute hands and all. And Nino really liked that.

“I’d like to give it a try,” he said, once Jun had settled down again. He got up from the chair, feeling his body shaking a little. “It’s not conventional, but I work at a vampire enclave, so it should be apparent to anyone that I’m not a conventional sort of person.”

Sho got to his feet, holding out his hand nervously. It was a princely sort of gesture that had Jun giggling a bit quietly beside them, but Nino couldn’t look anywhere else. He’d just agreed to enter some sort of dating scenario with a vampire and his blood contract, and he was sweating, feeling a strange throb in his neck, almost an itchy sensation. Because what he’d agreed to probably included Sho biting him at some point, as Jun had said from the start.

Nino took Sho’s hand, could feel the strength in Sho’s grip. He was strong, stronger than Nino could really understand, but there was a gentleness in his face that Nino knew he could trust. Jun would have never stayed with Sho this long if he couldn’t trust him. 

“I won’t do anything you’re not ready for,” Sho promised him, and Nino felt like he might faint as Sho came closer, his hand sliding up Nino’s arm, fingertips tickling along the inside of his arm. “And no offense, but I don’t bite on a first date.”

“So lame,” Jun teased.

Sho’s cool hand came to his face, pushing aside a loose strand of hair that had fallen across Nino’s brow. As lame as some of Sho’s comments had been that evening, Nino wanted him so badly he thought he’d explode. Having Sho so close, knowing that Sho could kiss him or kill him at any moment…the danger inherent in that had Nino sucking in a breath, licking his lips. 

He could sense the change in Sho, the split second shift. Sho had inhaled, exhaled, whatever self-imposed chains he’d gathered around himself loosening, unraveling. One moment there was Sakurai Sho before him, who wrote dorky blog posts and let Jun’s teasing get to him. And then there was Sakurai Sho, vampire and seducer, who had suddenly arrived and was eager to make himself known.

“I won’t bite you, not tonight. And I won’t bite you ever, if that’s what you want.” He leaned forward, and Nino’s eyelids fluttered closed when he felt Sho’s breath against his neck, against his earlobe. The words he spoke next were only for Nino to hear. “But I am a little hungry, after watching you both eat that fucking omurice. So I do intend to take what I want from Jun.”

Nino’s stomach knotted and twisted, feeling like the only thing holding him upright was the deep, husky sound of Sho’s voice so close. “Sho-chan…”

He bit back a moan when he felt Sho’s cool, plump lips press along his neck, finding his pulse. He kissed Nino’s neck so gently he thought he was going to come in his pants. “You want to watch? I think he’d like it.”

“O-okay…okay.”

When he opened his eyes again, Sho had left his side, and with surprising self-control, with surprising force of will, he looked at Jun and simply snapped his fingers. With obedience that Nino thought would be impossible, Jun started to take off his shirt, unzipping his jeans right in the middle of the living room. Sho looked over, and Nino gulped when he saw that Sho’s eyes were almost black. Sho was in control, and there was nothing sweet or kind about him now.

“Sit. Watch.”

Nino had never sat down so fast in his life, his ass landing awkwardly on the living room table because it was the closest thing to park on. He watched Sho, keeping all of his clothes on, have an almost leisurely seat in the middle of the couch. Jun had stripped down to only his underwear, and Nino had a difficult time looking away from his erection, straining against the fabric, seeing how quickly the teasing Matsumoto Jun had given in to desire. Sho was addicted to Jun’s blood, that much was obvious. But Jun was addicted to Sho (and what Sho could do to him) just as badly.

Being bitten, Nino knew it hurt. Unskilled vampires existed, who bit with only their own satisfaction in mind. But with the lustful laziness of Jun’s expression, the possessive want in Sho’s, Nino had a feeling that they did this because they both enjoyed it. It wasn’t like he was going to watch Sho take a bite from Jun like he was eating an apple. Nino felt like he’d been ordered to watch them fuck. And he found that nothing would make him happier.

Sho sat up a little, scooting to the middle of the cushion. He spread his legs and gave the cushion before him a quick pat. Jun sat without protest, his back to Sho, sitting between Sho’s thighs at the edge of the couch cushion. Jun’s eyes shut tight as soon as Sho’s arm came around him, hugging him around the middle. Nino was breathing heavily by now, serving as a silent witness, seeing how Sho’s hand rested on Jun’s abdomen, mere inches from the waistband of his boxer briefs. He watched Sho pat Jun’s pale, flat stomach, teasing him.

Without having to ask, Jun tilted his head to the side, exhaling a shuddering breath. Jun moaned when Sho’s lips kissed along the curve of his shoulder. “Nino’s watching,” Sho said, his voice a far cry from the gentle, calm tones Nino was used to hearing. It had the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. “Jun, do you like that Nino’s watching?”

Jun barely nodded, gasping quietly as Sho kissed his way along Jun’s shoulder, slow, wet kisses that had Nino desperate to unzip, to take his own erection in hand. But Sho hadn’t told him to do that. Sho had told him only to sit. To watch.

But as if Sho could read his mind, he whispered some sort of command into Jun’s ear, and Nino saw Jun sigh, his front teeth biting down achingly hard on his own bottom lip, exposing the dark little mole he had underneath. While Sho continued to kiss lovingly along Jun’s shoulder, behind him to his shoulder blade, along the sharp curve of his jawline, Jun had apparently been ordered to touch himself.

Nino’s hands found the edge of the coffee table, and he held on tight, feeling it dig into his palms almost painfully as Jun undid the two small buttons on his boxer briefs, letting his erection free. He was clearly struggling, between the soft torture of Sho’s mouth against his neck and the as yet unaddressed need between his legs. Sho whispered in Jun’s ear again, and Jun brought a shaking hand up, across his chest. He let Sho lick and suck his fingers for a few moments before bringing his hand to his hard cock. Jun started to stroke himself, a slick and needy sound that made Nino’s mouth go dry. 

Jun was falling apart, Sho continuing to whisper in his ear, soft but demanding. Nino could barely concentrate, his gaze moving from Sho’s mouth at Jun’s ear to the tension in Jun’s arm muscles as he touched himself and then down to his cock. He’d never seen Jun so out of control before, and it was killing him to only be able to watch.

“Please,” Jun was soon whispering. “Sho-kun…please…”

Sho looked up from where he’d been licking along Jun’s neck, seemingly preparing him for the inevitable. His dark eyes locked with Nino’s.

“This might be scary, since you’ve never seen them,” Sho said. He gave Jun’s stomach an almost condescending little pat. “But don’t worry. He’s asking for it so nicely today. He’ll be just fine.”

Sho’s big, bright white teeth looked normal for only a second longer, having issued his warning. Nino gripped the table hard when he saw two fangs protrude from Sho’s gums, sliding down over two of his front teeth. He nearly lost it when Sho’s grip on Jun tightened, when he pulled Jun back against him hard and Nino watched the two sharp fangs break through Jun’s skin. The noise Jun made in that moment, the sharp, shuddering moan of pleasure as Sho’s fangs pierced a vein on his neck with one swift motion, was a sound Nino was certain he’d never forget.

The fangs vanished, retracting Nino guessed, because Sho looked up quickly to smile again and they were already gone. But before the dark crimson blood could stain its way any further down Jun’s neck, Sho started to drink. With little fanfare, Nino saw Jun’s hand still, his fingers and stomach sticky with his release. He’d probably come the second Sho’s fangs had broken his skin. As he listened to the almost vulgar, crude sound of Sho sucking Jun’s blood, he saw Jun open his eyes. He smiled in the dopey, endearing way of any orgasm’s afterglow, winking at Nino for only a second before Sho’s grip on him tightened, and he moaned again, shutting his eyes tight.

Nino didn’t know how long it was supposed to last, watching Jun nearly deflate in Sho’s grasp, his strong body going limp as Sho took what he wanted, what he craved. But before Nino could say something, ask if he was hurting Jun, Sho stopped. Jun’s neck was a mess, the pale skin stained, but it seemed like he wasn’t bleeding now. Maybe there was something in Sho’s saliva that closed up the wound. It was all so dangerous, but Jun was clearly still alive, would recover. 

Nino could see Sho slowly coming back to himself, his eyes changing. The way he was holding Jun changed too. He was embracing him now, pressing his forehead to Jun’s back, his eyes shut tight as he regained control of his urges. It was tender and sweet, and even though he’d watched everything else without shame, with his eyes wide open, it was only now that Nino felt like he was intruding on something personal.

For the first time, Nino had seen what a vampire could do. The control he’d exerted over Jun, and over Nino himself. Never in all that time had Nino felt compelled to disobey what Sho had asked of him, and surprisingly, neither had Jun, who Nino thought of as someone who lived to do the opposite of what Sho wished. 

Sho finally looked up, and he looked a little nervous. “Did I scare you?”

“Maybe,” Nino admitted, feeling a little odd that Jun was still sitting there, covered in his own come, breathing unsteadily. “Maybe a little.”

“I’m sorry,” Sho said. Nino couldn’t help but look away as Sho pressed a kiss to Jun’s temple, ruffling his hair. “Come on, let’s get him cleaned up.”

Nino was uncomfortable for a few minutes more, his erection gradually calming as he ran some bathwater and then helped Sho get Jun up and into the bathroom. Nino sat by, perched on the toilet as he watched Sho get Jun into the bathtub, hearing Jun hum appreciatively as his body sank into the hot water. Sho cared for him so gently it made Nino blush, watching him pat a washcloth against Jun’s wounded neck.

Nino thought that Jun was almost asleep, but midway through Sho’s ministrations, he started to laugh a little. “Sho-kun, you went off script today.”

Sho chuckled, rubbing the washcloth across Jun’s back. “What? What script?”

Jun finally opened his eyes, looking at Nino. “He usually doesn’t make me jerk off before he bites me.”

“Is that so?” Nino asked, raising an eyebrow at Jun’s blunt statement.

“We had an audience,” Sho pointed out. “I thought you’d like it.” Nino wasn’t sure if Sho was talking to Jun or to him when he said that. “And it’s not like I’m going to fuck you in front of…”

Sho’s face went hilariously blank in panic at what he’d just admitted so casually. 

Nino’s jaw dropped.

But Jun’s smile was wide and beautiful. “That’s the usual script. And now you know. Sho-kun is kinkier than you might have expected.”

“Nino, I’m sorry for this horrible introduction to our personal life.” Sho splashed Jun with some water, groaning. “You’re disgusting.”

“What? Me?” Jun splashed back, laughing. “He should know what he signed on for.”

“We’ve been together for years! I’m not going to ask him to do that when we’ve known him for two months!”

Jun looked over in Nino’s direction, pointing rather rudely. “Please, look at that sweet little face. He wants the full Sakurai service.”

The bathtub splashing intensified. “You’re going to scare him away!”

Nino crossed his arms, hugging himself a bit as he tried and failed to hide his smile. He definitely wasn’t scared away. In fact, Nino got the sense that his own personal life was going to become a lot more interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

He looked away when the needle pierced his skin, the nurse taking a blood sample with little gentleness. Nino tried to focus on a poster on the wall, a picture of two smiling children waving. “Grow up big and strong!” the poster said, “By eating a balanced diet.”

Nino rolled his eyes, not terribly interested in watching his blood fill up the vial. It had been two weeks now, with August winding down and his new strange life just getting started. Sho and Jun, despite their renewed relationship, were as hardworking as ever and they departed on most nights for the Starlight Kiss offices, working on organizing their fall tours.

But that didn’t mean they’d forgotten Nino. Jun, despite how tired it ended up making him for work, took advantage of daylight hours and scheduled things that required Nino to escort him. The first week, Jun had dragged Nino along to lunch with Toma and Mao, playing footsie with him under the table and daring him to do something about it. And the second week he’d completely lied about having a dentist appointment, instead taking Nino by the hand and pulling him back to the rear of the Amagasa enclave garage, just where Aiba’s security camera and the motion sensors didn’t reach.

Jun was rough, intense with his affections, kissing Nino until his mouth ached, pinning his wrists above his head and sucking on his neck, whispering in his ear about how badly he wanted to watch Sho drink from him the first time. They’d stayed in the garage for over an hour, Nino nearly losing his mind as Jun slipped his hand into his pants and jerked him off hard and fast. He doubted that Aiba had believed him when he came back up to the lobby, lips swollen and making excuses that he had to change his pants because he’d spilled soda on them while waiting for Jun to get his teeth cleaned.

And that was just Jun, stealing moments during the day. 

Sho was no less enthusiastic about getting time with him alone. He sometimes showed up at Nino’s door an hour before sunrise, nosing along Nino’s neck before pressing the lightest of kisses against his pulse. He’d come down shortly after sunset one night, just as Nino was locking up. With the lights off, nobody could really see into the mail room, but Nino had still been nervous as hell when he’d let Sho into the darkened room with him, against enclave rules. As other residents exited the building, walking through the lobby just on the other side of the wall, Nino was busy discovering that Sho was just as skilled with his mouth as Jun was, kissing him, sucking on his collarbone before turning Nino around, pushing him against the counter and grinding against his ass until Nino begged him to stop.

He was bruised and covered in hickeys, no better than a teenager figuring things out for the first time. It was like Sakurai and Matsumoto were in competition with one another, to stake their claims on Nino’s body in places where nobody but them would actually see. Nino pondered the new situation thoughtfully, wondering if it was healthy to let the two of them do these things to him.

Yeah. He had zero problems with it.

Which had led him here, to the doctor’s office for a blood test. He’d watched Sho drink from Jun twice since that first night. The first time had mostly been a repeat, but sort of in slow motion. Sho had bared his fangs, but this time he’d let Nino come close, to look at them. Nino had been bold enough to run his finger along Sho’s bottom lip before pulling his hand back and letting him take what he wanted from Jun.

The second time had been considerably more adventurous, one of his own fantasies come to life in all too vivid detail. They’d been in Sho and Jun’s bed, the three of them, and while Sho drank from Jun, Nino sucked Jun’s cock, trying to match his own rhythms with Sho’s. For once, Jun had been left utterly speechless.

But Nino wanted more. He understood it now, how Sho and Jun had so easily become addicted to one another. The thought of Sho sucking his blood, his fangs piercing through his skin, he hadn’t quite been a hundred percent on board before. Even seeing how much pleasure it brought Jun, he’d still been wary at first. But he was starting to change his tune, wanting to know what it would be like to sit in Jun’s place and have it done to him. Though Sho and Jun both took turns with him, kissing and slowly learning his body, Nino wanted more. 

He’d been too embarrassed to voice his request aloud, since he didn’t think he could actually get the words out, but he’d decided that sending the email during their work hours, when he knew they wanted to work seriously, would irritate the shit out of both of them, and what could be better than that?

So he’d emailed them and gone to bed, waking up to two replies. One from Sho asking that he please get a blood test and disclose anything about his sexual history they ought to know. And a second from Jun full of firework emojis that simply said “Yes!!!”

—

The birthday cake for Jun was still on the dining room table, uneaten, as Sho rolled a condom onto Jun’s cock. Although Nino thought that this ought to be a more Nino-centric celebration, the birthday boy had insisted they do it tonight and who was Nino to say no?

Jun was in bed on his back, looking impatient, but Nino hadn’t exactly done this for a while. But he felt as ready as he was going to be, having spent the last several minutes being lovingly manhandled with expert attention, Jun having stroked his cock while Sho had slowly, gently thrust inside Nino with his cold, lubed up fingers. 

“I want someone to be fucking me when Sho-chan bites me the first time” had been his request, and now the time had come. 

He crawled across the bed, getting on top of Jun. Sho sat idly by, stroking himself with a bemused grin, as Nino teasingly kissed his way across Jun’s chest, down his abdomen to the dark trail of hair that pointed the way to his waiting erection. Jun thrust his hips up, trying to urge him along. “I want my cake, Ninomiya,” Jun protested.

Jun knew he was nervous, and despite his usual teasing, Jun had actually been kind to him the last few days as Nino prepared for his “first time” with them. Jun’s emails had been full of answers Nino wanted, explaining as best he could what it felt like when Sho bit him, how sharp the pain was and how long it lasted. “You’ll never stop wanting it,” Jun had told him, which had nearly made Nino change his mind.

But now here he was, biting back a moan as he slowly lowered himself onto Jun’s cock, seeing patience in Jun’s face that he didn’t necessarily hear in Jun’s voice. Soon enough he felt full, shutting his eyes as he lifted himself and sank back down, his body gradually adjusting to the feeling of Jun inside him, hard and thick. This in itself was something to check off his bucket list, knowing that he was going to spend the next several minutes riding Matsumoto Jun’s dick.

Jun said nothing else annoying, thankfully, his hands settling on Nino’s waist, skimming across his skin as Nino rolled his hips. As he got more comfortable, he reached his hands back, holding tight to Jun’s thighs. This encouraged Jun, who started to gently rock his hips, thrusting up each time Nino ground down. It felt ridiculously good, and all of the hours he’d sat in the mail room picturing it could not really compare. “Oh god,” he was mumbling soon enough, looking over and seeing that Sho had somehow vanished from his side of the bed while he and Jun had gone right on fucking without a thought to spare for him.

Before he realized it, he felt cold fingers tracing along his spine, and he knew that Sho was behind them, probably kneeling between Jun’s spread legs. He stiffened a little, knowing Sho wouldn’t be able to hold off much longer. Nino had to be ready or he had to get out of the way and let Sho have Jun. Because when a vampire was hungry, you did not interfere.

Nino slowed down, trying to concentrate on breathing, letting Jun do all the work. The last thing Nino wanted was to be riding Jun like a mechanical bull and risk Sho tearing his throat open. 

“Do you still want this?”

Sho’s voice was warm honey, surging through him, coating his bones. He tried very hard to concentrate, but having Jun where he was made things difficult. Perhaps he should have done this as a two-step process.

“You need to say yes, you know,” Sho reminded him.

He felt Jun’s hands squeeze his waist, warm and steady, and he nodded. “Yes,” he said, concentrating on the sensation of Jun’s cock slowly working in and out of him, a teasing pace that had him tightening his grip on Jun’s thighs, knowing his fingernails were going to leave marks on him. 

Sho’s hands were gentle, easing Nino’s head to the side, his fingers stroking along his skin. Before he knew it, Sho was replacing his fingers with his mouth. Nino moaned softly at the feeling, each gentle press of Sho’s lips against his neck. He squeezed Jun tighter, hearing a quiet “fuck” come from him, feeling Jun’s body shaking a little beneath him.

Sho’s fingers grasped hold of Nino’s hair, tightening. That was the warning. That was all the warning Sho had promised. And then there was pain, a sharp sting that made him cry out. Sho had an arm around him, and he let out the faintest little “mmmm” noise before Nino felt him suck for the first time. It pulled another gasp from him, but it didn’t hurt. Actually, he’d never felt anything like it.

His whole body was suddenly on fire, tingling from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and he wanted nothing more than to scream. But he couldn’t, he could barely make a sound, gasping as he listened to Sho’s mouth pressed against him, the little slurps and swallows. He knew by now that he was hurting Jun, digging his fingernails into the sensitive skin of his thighs. He could feel Sho behind him, a force he couldn’t control. He could feel Jun inside him, hard and hot.

Nino lost all sense of time, feeling like he’d somehow detached from himself. His vision was blurred, his hearing was muddled. He thought he could taste his own blood, a churning ache at the back of his throat. And then he could tell that Sho had stopped. But he didn’t let go. Instead he felt Sho’s hand come around him, grasping hold of his cock.

“Jun,” Sho said, sounding far away as Nino let out another shudder of bewildered pleasure. “Fuck him.”

And then Jun was moving again, each thrust so fast and deep inside him Nino couldn’t breathe. It might have been awkward, with Jun beneath him and Sho behind him trying to get him off, but it didn’t even matter. He didn’t care. He wanted to come. He needed to come.

It was too much and not enough and then way too much, and he let go, his orgasm coaxing a near scream from him. He’d never come like this before, feeling a curious, throbbing ache in his neck, feeling like he could hear the blood pumping, roaring through his veins. Sho let him go and he fell forward, not caring about the filthy mess he’d made, falling onto Jun. He felt Jun’s arms come around his back, felt Jun move, bringing his legs up, bending at the knees so he could thrust up and into Nino as hard and fast as he could. All he could do was let it happen.

He could hear Jun now, so close, his voice just another prickle of pleasure shooting through him. “So good,” he was telling Nino. “So fucking good.”

He was moaning, he was crying out, wondering where Sho had gone. But then Jun was coming, unable to keep up the brutal pace any longer. He stopped, and Nino lay there on top of him, breathing so heavily his chest ached. At some point, he felt Jun slowly pull out of him, the absence of his cock making him wince. Then he was being moved, blinking in confusion as he was rolled over, onto his stomach. He met Jun’s eyes, saw that he was smiling.

“Wow,” Nino managed to whisper, unable to even laugh.

“Wow,” Jun said in agreement, grinning at him.

Before Nino could even ask “where’s Sho-chan?” he was there, getting Jun’s condom off, throwing it in the trash beside the bed. Nino was exhausted, eyelids heavy, and he suspected they were not going to get to Jun’s cake any time soon. He felt disgusting, wanting a bath, but he couldn’t even voice his irritation. Especially not now that Sho was kissing his way down Jun’s abdomen, stroking him with practiced hands.

He could only watch, smiling a dumb, freshly fucked smile as he watched Sho grab the lube bottle from the nightstand, generously coating his fingers. “Remember?” he somehow heard Sho say to him. “Remember Nino, it’s his birthday.”

He heard Jun groan as Sho started to work, sliding a finger inside him. “Happy birthday,” Nino tried to tell Jun with his eyes, but Jun wasn’t listening anyhow. Nino watched, silly and content, as Sho fucked Jun with his fingers, quick and dirty, until Jun had tears in his eyes, begging for it so desperately his fingers were digging into the sheets at Nino’s side.

“You’ll never stop wanting it,” Jun had told him, and he’d been right.

Nino somehow drifted off midway through, with the sound of Jun’s satisfied moans beside him lulling him into unconsciousness.

—

“He’s not going to like this,” Agent Yoshitaka said in lieu of a proper greeting, pulling a folder out of her briefcase.

“He who?” Nino asked, leaning against the mail room counter.

“Matsumoto-san,” she said, passing the folder to him. Nino gave her a suspicious look, but as usual, her face was an impenetrable brick wall. He opened the folder, seeing the copy of the blood contract paperwork Nino had submitted on Jun and Sho’s behalf over a week ago.

“What’s wrong with it? The ward office signed off on it, no problem,” he said, looking through the papers. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you did everything you were supposed to, but it’s a new law that’s about to go into effect. I’m bringing this to you here because we’re trying to get to people who already have their paperwork in the queue first. After that we’ll be evaluating existing contracts on a rolling basis.” Yoshitaka cocked her head, staring at him in her strange way. “All blood contracts need final Bureau approval now. Beyond just the regular registration on the local level. He’ll have to come in for an interview. In person, to headquarters. To verify that he’s not being coerced or blackmailed into the agreement. Or to make sure that he’s not conspiring with vampires to ‘overthrow the social order’. That’s how the law reads, anyhow.”

“Oh come on,” Nino complained, shutting the folder. “This is his second contract with Sho-san. And the only conspiracy they have together is a lame ass blog on their travel site.”

“The new Japan,” Yuriko said, her voice almost apologetic. “BC negotiations have always been in the vampires’ hands, I know, but after Kobe, the Bureau’s been looking for ways to keep closer tabs on the humans who mingle with vampires. Since those rogue vamps got out during daylight hours, the Bureau’s fairly certain that humans played a part in it. So there’s a witch hunt now for ‘vampire sympathizers,’ if such a thing exists.”

“I suppose somewhere down the line I’ll be invited to say hello to the Bureau too. To discuss my various ‘sympathies.’”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Yoshitaka agreed. It wasn’t enough that the Bureau came in every week to spy on them. It wasn’t enough that they still kept their “temporary” night security guards in every enclave.

“And what if a BC refuses to come in for this so-called interview?” Because Nino could already see Jun saying thanks, but no thanks, his contract with Sho was between them, especially since he lived in an enclave.

Yoshitaka nodded in understanding. “They could be forcibly removed from an enclave’s premises.”

“But Japanese law doesn’t apply inside these walls.”

“Japanese law doesn’t apply to the _vampires_ inside these walls.” Yoshitaka had a rather grim smile to offer Nino then. “Humans are a different matter. At least that’s what’s on the books as of 9:00 AM today.”

He frowned. Nino knew the golden age of blood contracts had long since passed, that the future was in blood banks and in whatever animal-derived sustenance they could get their hands on. What restrictions were coming next?

He laid out everything Yuriko had explained that evening, sitting in the office of Starlight Kiss Tours, slurping down noodles while Sho kept working without so much as a word of protest. Jun, as Nino had expected, was enraged.

“It’s my blood, why should the government have a say in whether I can give it to him or not?”

“It’s just an interview. A formality,” Sho said, trying to calm him.

Jun kicked the side of the couch, letting out an angry grunt of complaint. “They’re going to do trackers next, just you watch. It’ll be like Brazil around here, they’ll embed them right under your skin, shallow enough that you always know they’re there. Watching and listening, waiting for you to fuck up.”

“I don’t think they’ll go that far,” Nino said, trying to reason with him. “And I’ll be going with you. To headquarters. I’ll be in the room with you the whole time. Yuriko said they’d respect the BC’s escort.”

“Are they going to ask me how many times he does it? Are they going to ask me if I like it?” Jun complained.

“I don’t know what they’re going to ask you,” Nino replied. “I don’t like it either, but she said you could be removed from Amagasa if you didn’t cooperate. What’s answering a few questions going to do to you, honestly? Would you rather they come into your apartment one morning and drag you out kicking and screaming?”

Jun kept pacing the floor of the office, furious. Nino met Sho’s eyes, could see that as always, Sho didn’t want to rock the boat. It was invasive and insulting, like most other measures the Bureau had enacted. Nino supposed those feelings made him a vampire sympathizer, finding fault with the government’s methods. But what else could they do?

Nino finished up his dinner, resting a hand on Jun’s shoulder. “I need to go home, get some sleep.”

“I don’t want to talk to them,” Jun said, though his anger had weakened into something closer to a pathetic whine.

“I’m not going to bite you until you take the interview,” Sho said, his voice cutting through the room sharply. He wasn’t even looking up from the computer, his expression calm, typing up details for one of his cheery little blog posts.

“Cute,” Jun snapped, shoving Nino’s hand away from him. “Very cute.”

“Nino,” Sho continued, his face completely devoid of emotion. “Perhaps it would be best if Matsumoto-kun stayed with you tonight. He’s clearly not interested in getting any work done here.”

Nino held up his hands. “Sho-chan, fighting about this solves nothing.”

“How can you sit there and let this shit keep rolling off you?” Jun shouted, staring daggers at Sho’s blank expression. “What more do the humans have to do before you’ll grow some fucking balls and act? What is it going to take? How many more magazines? How many more bricks through the window? How many more canceled flights that nearly incinerate you? Get angry! Be angry about this! Feel something!”

Sho’s eyes were darkening, and his fingers paused on the keyboard. “Nino.”

He knew that if he didn’t get Jun out of there right then and there that the two of them would say something they’d regret. He settled his hand around Jun’s wrist, gave him a little tug.

“Come on. Please.”

Jun wrenched away again, but this time he didn’t put up a fight. They rode the train back, walking from the station to Amagasa in silence. Nino waited in the lobby, and Jun came down a few minutes later, toting a duffel bag. Sho had implied that Jun would just spend the night, but Jun would probably be angry for a little longer than that. He wondered if there’d been any other time like this, in their five years, when they’d slept apart. If they’d ever slept in separate buildings before.

In lieu of complaining further about Sho and his continued insistence on kowtowing to the Japanese government’s demands, Jun spent his time in Nino’s place above the family restaurant nitpicking and complaining about the apartment instead. About the pathetic state of the interior of Nino’s fridge, about the cleanliness of the bathroom, about the way Nino’s mattress creaked. Jun even slept angry, tossing and turning, making Nino want to shoot him midway through the night, but he eventually settled down, wrapping himself around Nino and clinging tight, as though Nino might disappear if he wasn’t holding on.

Jun went back to their apartment come sunrise, but only to get more of his things, some books, some food from the refrigerator. Nino left Jun alone in his apartment all day while he worked. He knew Jun wasn’t going anywhere, and Nino sent Sho email updates. Teasing little notes informing him that “Jun-kun spent the day scrubbing my bathtub” and “Did you know Jun-kun cries when he watches heartwarming animal commercials?” He received only brief, impersonal “thank you” messages in reply after the sun set. 

It wasn’t until the third night that Jun leaned over, sounding desperately sad when he squeezed Nino’s hand in the dark.

“Call Yoshitaka-san. I’ll talk to them.”

Nino lifted Jun’s hand to his mouth, brushing his mouth across his knuckles. “They’re going to say yes.” Jun said nothing, probably not wanting to admit that he was far more frightened than he was angry. That he feared that his contract with Sho would be rejected. “Jun-kun, you have to believe that they’re going to say yes.”

—

“Oh, fuck this,” Nino grumbled as the uniformed security guard waved him onto a different street. The news broadcasts had been buzzing about it, and it had drawn a crowd to the headquarters of the Bureau of Undead Management, an otherwise uninteresting concrete slab of a building a few blocks south of the main government buildings in Chiyoda, the ministries and courts and the Cabinet office. He drove past news vans and their crews, waiting like vultures to prey on whoever was set to go inside.

Jun shrank down in the seat beside him, embarrassed as Nino was directed around a mass of people that were being held back by police barricades. It was the first day that the Bureau would be holding interviews with BCs, something that Nino thought wasn’t really that interesting, but apparently the Japanese public at large disagreed. Becoming a BC, it was something that you could usually count on only family and friends to know. But someone had leaked the information, and the Bureau was surrounded. People were curious. After Kobe, they were way too fucking curious.

Nino ended up parking a few blocks away, holding Jun’s nervous, sweating hand in his own while he dialed Yuriko’s number. He could hear people, the gathered masses, their protesting shouts and chants muffled by the closed doors and windows of the Toyota.

“This is Yoshitaka.”

“Hey, what the hell is going on here?” he asked, hearing a chant of “vampire lover!” start somewhere nearby. “I’m here with Matsumoto, you’ve got to be kidding. How are we going to get inside?”

“There are security guards lining the entire route. Please, just come on inside. The crowd is peaceful.”

The noise didn’t exactly sound peaceful to Nino’s ears. “I want someone to come to us. I’m not walking him past those people. You know they’ve all got their phones out, snapping pictures. It’s a violation of privacy!”

He felt Jun squeeze his hand tighter, and he squeezed back.

“Ninomiya-kun, if we send security to where you’re parked, it’ll draw even more attention.”

He moved the phone from his ear, whispering to Jun. “Do you want to reschedule?”

Jun had on his sunglasses, taking a deep breath. “No. Let’s go.”

“Alright, Yoshitaka. Where do we go?”

It seemed like the longest walk of Nino’s life as he walked at Jun’s side toward the Bureau’s headquarters. Despite the heat, they’d both worn jackets, if only so they could keep them zipped up, to cover the matching puncture wounds on their necks. The crowd seemed to quiet down as they walked by, but it was all the more embarrassing, knowing they were staring in silence. Judging them.

Jun seemed to finally relax once they got inside, and Yuriko was there to help them sign the guest registry and enter the building. The place had the same stuffy, bureaucratic vibe of any government office, the sounds of fingers on keyboards and muffled small talk. They were seated in a tiny office at the end of a long corridor with worn-down, tacky carpeting, nothing more than a table and chairs. To Nino’s surprise, Yoshitaka conducted the interview herself, though a co-worker with thick glasses and a combover sat beside her, jotting things down on a laptop while Jun was questioned.

“I argued with my boss to get this interview. You’re my first for the day, Matsumoto-san,” she said in good humor, though Nino thought it was a bit tacky given what was happening outside. 

Despite his reservations and days spent wanting to be anywhere but in the bowels of this building, Jun behaved himself at the start. Having Agent Yoshitaka, a person who actually knew who he was (and was inside his apartment weekly) seemed to calm him considerably. She asked him questions for over an hour, asking about his family and what they thought about his blood contract. About how he’d met Sho and how they’d come to an agreement, their living arrangement in the enclave.

“Matsumoto-san, blood contracts traditionally run for five years, but on your newest submitted papers, it states that you will only be contracted to Sakurai-san for a year.” Yoshitaka looked at Jun seriously. “Why only a year?”

Nino knew the answer to this of course. Because Jun still wanted Sho to turn him. But there was no way he could tell a government agent that he…

“I have asked Sakurai-san to consider turning me.” Jun arched an eyebrow, daring Yoshitaka to say something. “We couldn’t reach an agreement when my contract was up, so this time I only signed on for a year in hopes of reopening a dialogue with him next year. But I still have every intention of being turned.” He dared to smile. “That’s not against the law yet, is it?”

Yoshitaka and the agent beside her didn’t say anything for a moment, as though they were waiting for Jun to laugh, to tell them he was joking. The balding agent eventually began to type, recording Jun’s answer in the computer. Yuriko’s strange smile was difficult to interpret.

“It is not against the law, provided it happens on enclave territory,” she explained. “As I’m sure Sakurai-san knows, unless you were already dying, any move he made to turn you, to have you feed on his blood outside enclave walls, would be considered an attack on a human. An attack that is punishable by death.”

It explained why Ohno had been able to turn Maru on the deck of his boat and why Joshima turning Sho against his will hadn’t been punishable. Maru had already been dying, and Sho had been inside Amagasa, helpless.

“He’s particularly well-versed in those regulations, Agent Yoshitaka,” Jun said, sounding almost cocky.

The remaining questions passed in a blur, about Jun’s means of employment and only a few questions about how Sho treated him, if Jun feared that Sakurai Sho might be a threat to Japan’s national security. 

“No, he’s an absolute angel. Sho-kun loves following rules,” Jun had said, so casually Nino wanted to hit him.

Despite all that, Nino sat there and watched Yuriko stamp Jun’s documents, the other agent informing him that if there were any changes in Sakurai Sho’s treatment of him that he had only to notify the Bureau and the problem would be “managed.” It sent a shudder down Nino’s spine, but Jun was free to live his life, at least for the next year, in the Amagasa Vampire Enclave. At Sho’s side.

Jun seemed lighter, happier, as he and Nino stepped out of headquarters. The crowd seemed even bigger, the press of bodies against the barricades walling them in on the narrow path that led them down the street, back to the parking lot. “Let’s get out of here,” Jun mumbled.

He walked ahead of Nino, not putting as much effort into keeping his jacket up, not attempting to hide the evidence on his neck of what he was. They went down the steps, Nino’s ears ringing with all the gathered hundreds seemingly talking all at once to either side of him. It was kind of claustrophobic, walking along the narrow path. The Bureau’s security were milling about, stopping every few feet to request a person put their phone away, to stop recording.

A woman was coming up the path, heading toward headquarters. From the purple bruising on her neck, she was another BC, here for an interview. While the crowd had obviously been curious about Jun, whispering and pointing at him, the woman’s arrival sent hypocritical ripples and murmurs of disapproval through the crowd. “Blood whore,” Nino heard, over and over again, a bullying taunt. “Blood whore.”

If she’d come with a daylight specialist from her own enclave, he or she didn’t seem to be accompanying her into the building. Nino’s heart broke as he saw the woman speed up her walking, looking down in shame. “We should help her inside,” he called ahead, shouting a bit over the crowd to Jun.

But then there was a scream, followed by an angry, guttural shout of “Sumire!” One of the barricades toppled, people shouting and pushing, and then a man was running up the pathway, faster than the security guards could chase him. “Sumire!”

Nino saw the woman freeze, like a deer in the headlights of a speeding car. The man, with a crazed look in his eyes, he wasn’t too pleased about “Sumire” coming to headquarters to negotiate about her blood contract.

It took only a few seconds, a few heartbeats, and Nino didn’t even realize that Jun had started running too. Sumire standing there, in shock, the man pursuing her, Jun hurrying to put himself in between them. Nino’s feet felt heavy, like he was trying to run underwater. He saw the crowd spilling out by the barricades, the security guards desperately trying to hold them back. He saw Jun push Sumire, pushing her out of the way, and Nino cried out when he saw the gleam of the knife in the angry man’s hand.

The attacker and Jun hit the pavement hard. When the security guards swarmed, hauling the man off of Jun, Nino was nearly sick when he saw the knife sticking out of Jun’s abdomen.

There was roaring in his ears, panic when the crowd realized what had happened, and then Nino was moving, stumbling forward, collapsing at Jun’s side. “Don’t touch it, don’t pull it out,” he said, slapping Jun’s hands away from the wound. He could see the red spreading, staining Jun’s shirt. He started babbling, seeing the look of pain in Jun’s face, his eyes staring upwards, lost. “You’re going to be fine, okay? You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

“Hurts,” Jun was moaning, on his back, lying at a strange angle. The wind knocked out of him and a knife in his belly. Nino was pushed aside, more security guards pouring out of the headquarters behind them. Two of them had Jun under his arms, a third grabbed his legs, and they lifted him, hurrying him back to the building as all hell broke loose.

Nino was left there, sitting on the ground struck dumb as footsteps shuffled all around him. He looked down at his hands, saw Jun’s blood on them, and then he remembered. “No,” he mumbled, “oh no, he can’t…” 

He looked up, squinting. The sun was high in the early September sky, bright and shining. The sun was shining, and Nino remembered.

_I could be sitting right here, and he could be in Ueno Park and if he so much as got a paper cut, I’d know._

He stumbled to his feet, hands sticky with Jun’s blood as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He left a smear of red across the phone screen as he dialed. He was soon at the top of the stairs, a Bureau agent waving him inside as the crowd frantically dispersed behind him.

“Hey, how’d everything go?”

“Masaki!” Nino cried, “Masaki, listen to me!”

“Nino, what’s wrong?”

He was in the lobby, eyes scanning the room in a panic. Where had they taken him? Had anyone called an ambulance? Did they have someone on site who could help him?

“Don’t let him leave. Masaki, don’t let him leave!”

“Don’t let who…” Nino thought the call had cut out, but then he heard Aiba shouting, in the background, his voice almost a howl. “Sho-chan! Sho-chan, you can’t go out there!”

—

The second ambulance was waiting for him, the sirens blaring when Sakurai Sho arrived at the headquarters of the Bureau of Undead Management. He’d come on foot, and he’d run all the way from Amagasa, a distance of nearly fifteen kilometers, in less than 20 minutes. Nino couldn’t even imagine how much faster he’d be at night.

Yuriko had a Bureau medical team ready to intercept, and Sho broke through a line of security guards with one last surge of energy, letting out a scream of protest and agony that Nino could feel in his marrow, standing at the top of the Bureau steps, waiting for him. 

“Sho-chan!” Nino cried. “Sho-chan, let them help you!”

At first, Aiba had thought it was a snowman bursting out through the doors of Amagasa, but he’d somehow managed to recognize the hat. The ugly fucking bucket hat.

As Sho collapsed, Yuriko’s medical team gathered around, and the vampire put up no further protests. Nino wasn’t quite sure what the Tokyo traffic cameras might have picked up, watching a streak of fire go dashing up the street, knocking aside pedestrians and racing through busy intersections, dodging cars. 

The nearest hospital equipped for a vampire patient in daylight hours was thankfully just blocks away, and when the doctor called Nino in sometime just after midnight, after Sho had undergone almost a dozen hours of treatment already, he had quite the story to tell. Sho’s skin had overheated, but the layers of clothes he’d managed to put over himself had borne the brunt of it. As the doctors had gently eased the fabric off of him, excising each tiny piece that had almost fused with his skin as he burned, it revealed that Sho had gone out wearing a ski mask, six t-shirts, two hooded sweatshirts, and a winter coat that might have served a human well in Siberia, all of that over jeans and snow pants.

“He’s insane,” the doctor concluded, especially after Nino had told him this wasn’t the first time Sho had gone out into the sunlight on purpose. “But he’ll live to tell the tale.”

Since Sho had been kind enough not to murder anyone on his desperate, suicidal charge to headquarters, and because their security had been so embarrassingly piss poor that Jun had been attacked when he shouldn’t have been, the Bureau was apparently picking up the hospital bill. The surgeries, the long and presumably painful process of burn treatment, the painkillers…all of it a burden on the Japanese taxpayer now.

As the proxy for the Amagasa enclave, Nino had suddenly been informed that he served as “next of kin” for any of the residents who hadn’t specifically named anyone in a will. He’d spent most of his day filling out paperwork and trying not to freak out, as he’d been made responsible for signing off on both Sho and Jun’s treatment. No plugs needed to be pulled, thankfully, or he’d have probably passed out and landed himself in a hospital bed of his own.

The nurses assured Nino that Sho would be told about Jun as soon as he regained consciousness, though that might not be for days with all the special vampire drugs they had him on to dull his pain and encourage the speedy vampire healing process to kick into gear. Joshima, who had sired Sho, had arrived at the hospital after dark, had told Nino that he would watch over him. “I don’t even know how to thank you,” Joshima had said. “For everything you’ve done.”

“I’m not so great. I take naps, you know,” Nino admitted, so tired he didn’t have much of a filter left. “In the mail room sometimes.”

Joshima hadn’t been angry. In fact, he’d laughed, patting his shoulder. “I think you’ve earned several naps, Ninomiya-kun.”

That left Nino to spend the night parked in a chair beside Jun’s bed, several floors up from the underground trauma unit that was somehow bringing Sho back from the brink. Jun’s parents and sister had already come and gone, and Nino had introduced himself only as a staff member from the enclave. Jun’s mother had been almost as worried about Sho as she’d been about her son, which made Nino smile.

The elder Matsumoto, Jun’s father, was a gruff man with the same proud bearing his son had. But when Nino had explained what Sho had done, leaving the enclave to come after Jun, his need to protect him far stronger than his need for survival, even the old man had been stunned. 

Thanks to the haste and inexperience of his attacker, Jun had been extremely lucky. The knife had not penetrated any major organs, nor had it severed any arteries. Nurses came in and out of the room like clockwork, as the main worry now was from infection. He wasn’t going to be moving for several days, but all things considered, he would recover. And thanks to the damn interview he’d had with Yuriko just prior to the attack, she’d been able to ensure that the hospital had Jun’s blood type available if a transfusion was necessary. 

He was sleeping now, somehow managing to be the only human being in existence to still look downright handsome in a hospital gown. Nino had pulled the chair up close, had maneuvered himself so he could lean forward, rest his arms on the bed and put his head close to Jun’s side. “The two of you, I swear,” he grumbled. “Sho-chan’s all wrapped up like a mummy right now, I should have taken a picture for you.”

He shut his eyes, exhausted and amazed that he’d made it through the longest day of his entire life. He listened to the patient, steady beeping from all the machines Jun was hooked up to, wishing he could somehow get to Sho, get inside his head, assure him that Jun was alive. That Jun was okay. That he had a reason to wake up again. All these weeks, all these years, Sho had kept to himself. He’d kept the peace, he’d obeyed the rules. But today that had changed, and he wondered what Jun thought of it. And if it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The machines beeped, the fluids dripped, and the nurses never even asked Nino to go home. One particularly kind nurse checked Jun’s vitals before draping a blanket over Nino, patting his back. He’d almost lost them today. Both of them. He was determined to never let them forget how much stress they’d caused him, how many gray hairs he expected to sprout in the coming days. Perhaps he’d retaliate by signing them up for a Stinky Cheese of the Month Club subscription.

At some point he felt familiar fingers running through his hair, stroking gently, before he fell asleep.

—

Jun was a sulky patient, complaining about the hospital food, his hospital attire, and his inability to go downstairs to see Sho. Thankfully not in that order.

Over the next few days, the visiting hours were filled to the brim, people cluttering up the room whenever Jun wasn’t being poked and prodded. The Matsumoto family returned with flowers by day, Toma and Mao came to yell at him for ‘being too slow to dodge’ in the afternoon, and residents of the Amagasa Vampire Enclave poked their heads in at night. Aiba arrived with smuggled in food. Ohno and Maru volunteered to water the plant in the Starlight Kiss Tours office. Murakami came to teasingly chide Jun for letting so much of his precious blood be wasted, when the two of them could have made a fortune.

By the fourth day Jun got sick of the company, ordering everyone out soon after sunset. He wanted to try walking, but Nino had shoved him down into a wheelchair, not giving a shit about Jun’s dignity. They’d been cleared to go underground, as Sho had finally emerged from his fog of painkillers. He was being kept inside a glass observation room, sealed off in hopes of warding off infections. He’d be in there for several weeks while his skin repaired itself.

He was still bandaged up, though his head was mostly uncovered. The doctors had given him a rather unattractive buzzcut in order to attend to his scalp, and he lay there in bed while a nurse gently held his phone on speaker beside him.

Jun had his phone in hand, his other hand on the glass, as though he could somehow reach through and touch him. “Your head has an ugly shape,” he said by way of greeting, earning him a rather weak chuckle in reply.

“Hi.”

“But I suppose it’ll grow back, your hair. This will now be a cherished memory. The time when Sakurai Sho was bald. Seriously though, your head is shaped very oddly.”

“Sorry.”

“Anyhow, I would not recommend getting stabbed,” Jun said, trying to sound casual, although Nino knew it was killing him to be on the other side of the glass. “It sucks.”

Ever so slowly, Sho tilted his head, looking over. He couldn’t move much else, not yet.

Jun maintained his teasing tone, informing Sho of all the Starlight Kiss activity he was handling from his hospital bed, with Nino’s assistance. He’d gone ahead and canceled all events and tours through the end of the year, which made Sho’s expression become grim.

“We’re Starlight Kiss Tours,” Jun said. “Not Ugly Bald Guy Tours. We have a brand reputation to uphold. They can wait for 2016, or whenever you have hair again.”

Sho blinked, his voice scratchy and strained. “Okay.”

“Nino is going back to work tomorrow,” Jun informed Sho. “Because if he doesn’t, then it means Aiba-kun will remain in charge of the mail room. And nobody wants that. As for me, I may be discharged by the end of the week. Joshima-san has done some preliminary cleaning while we’ve been gone, since we still had things in the sink and laundry hanging up. I can bring your laptop here, if you want, once they clear you to do tasks like that. Something to look forward to, working. Your favorite pastime, Sho-san. As for the rest of your time, it seems that Agent Yoshitaka has hired you an entire physical therapy team. Sounds expensive, vampire physical therapy! About time the government did something nice for a change.”

Sho was staring at him, blinking back tears, clearly wishing he was strong enough to say something more. Instead, he settled for “Okay.”

Jun looked down. “Now hurry up and get better.”

“Okay.”

Tears were streaming down Jun’s face when Nino pushed him back to the elevator. But seeing Sho, seeing him awake and even talking, Nino knew the worst was over. 

The life of a Daylight Specialist, it was certainly never dull. Although, Nino hoped, he could definitely use a few months (or even years) of dull after the summer he’d just had.

—

Five months later

—

“I don’t have the passes for the aquarium night tour. Shit, they’re probably still by the printer.”

“What the hell, the taxi will be here in a few minutes!” Sho complained, tapping his watch. “Do I have to do everything around here?”

Jun rolled his eyes, leaving his rolling suitcase next to the mail counter in the lobby of the Amagasa Vampire Enclave. “I’ll be two seconds. I’ll be right back, promise.”

And off he ran, hurrying for the elevator. Nino shut down the computer in the mail room, watching Sho tap his foot impatiently. He looked over, giving Nino his patented long-suffering look. The look of someone who planned every one of his very special guided tours down to the minute, who had zero tolerance for such important things like aquarium passes being forgotten. “Can you believe him?” Sho’s eyes were asking.

“Osaka’s not going anywhere, Sho-chan.”

“What do you know, Ninomiya? You don’t leave Tokyo.”

Nino nodded. “Fair enough.” 

He pulled down the shutter for the reception window with a rude bang, locking it up for the night. He closed up the mail room, stretching his arms over his head as he joined Sho in the lobby. It was February, it was freezing cold outside, and he had a very long night of undisturbed sleep to look forward to. Winter, what a glorious season.

There was a faint pink patch of scar tissue on Sho’s face now, running from the tip of his nose and down to his jaw. Five months on, it was still warm to the touch. Nino poked him there to be annoying, once, twice, before pressing a kiss to it. Sho tolerated the poking, and the kiss made him look away in shy delight.

“Safe travels. I’m sleeping in your bed while you’re gone. I’ve always liked your mattress better anyhow.”

“Don’t move Jun’s stuff around in the bathroom. He knows it’s you doing it every time.”

“He loves me,” Nino protested, holding his nose in the air.

Sho smiled, shaking his head. “It amazes me that the both of you will be turning 33 this year. When are you two going to grow up?”

In a handful of months, Jun’s blood contract would be up again. Nino was the only person who knew that Sho finally intended to agree to Jun’s request, that just like Sho, Jun would be 33 years old for the rest of his “life.” Jun didn’t even know yet. Sho was actually planning to tell him that weekend, during their Osaka trip, that he was willing, so long as Jun still wanted it. As for Nino, who had no interest in drinking blood or giving up his incredible salary that required him to work daylight hours, he supposed that he would insist on them calling him “senpai” when he reached the ripe old age of 34.

“We’ll never grow up,” Nino said. “Just to piss you off.”

The elevator chimed in time with Sho’s laugh, and Jun came back with a handful of papers in tow. Sho snatched them away from him, grumbling under his breath. The taxi arrived, and they said their goodbyes, bundled up in their coats and off to Tokyo Station to meet the shinkansen that would get them to Shin-Osaka before midnight.

Nino leaned back against the counter, grinning. He reached out his fingertips, giving the service bell a quick little ding.

“Sorry,” he said to the empty lobby. “We’re closed.”


End file.
